


Mind Over Matter

by emotionaldun



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Male Character, Criminal Keith, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Langst, M/M, Miscommunication, Pain, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, References to Depression, Religious Conflict, Slow Burn, emo as HELL, keith was once into emo journal writing and diaries, klance, klangst as hell boiiiiiii, more tags as we go my dudes, past nyma/lance - Freeform, photographer lance, psychologist keith, suggestive dancing bc why not i can do what i want, suspicious & gay keith™, will keith's suffering ever end? stay tuned!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:31:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionaldun/pseuds/emotionaldun
Summary: Mind Over Matter - the power of the mind to control and influence the body and the physical worldKeith Kogane found himself broke at the age of nineteen, living off of whatever scraps of money he could scourge from illegal methods and paying for his college tuition - he is a psychology major that does not know how to take care of himself physically, emotionally, nor mentally. After a prolonged period of not sleeping, he ends up in an accident in an unknown part of Brooklyn, and gets help from someone named Lance that owns a restaurant right across the street from the incident. He takes the wounded boy in, and they develop a relationship immediately despite their differences. As time passes, both boys find themselves on a journey of change, awakening new emotions, and landing themselves into trouble whenever something goes wrong: Lance McClain was the root of Keith's growth, and one of the various branches of his gradual demise.





	1. ONE: New Person, Same Old Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back and dropping a new bestseller (not really tho) at 11:40 PM on a Sunday night despite having school tomorrow???? I have made a mistake lowkey but a mistake I am proud of, not like I wouldn't be tired anyways. Enough about me, here's the quick rundown on this chapter in the best synopsis I could make on the spot: 
> 
> Keith ends up passing out and injuring himself from lack of sleep, a stranger nurses him back to health, some ~bonding time~ with the boys, i had the urge to point the stupidity behind female/male shampoo differences so i did it here bc i can do what i want & nobody can stop me (fucking TYRANT tabitha, never saying that again), sparse humor in an attempt to get likes bc im in constant need of affection and compliments (not really tho x2), and a SHOOOOCKKINGGG cliffhanger like I am SO surprised, such quality content, "keep me on my toes" sort of action 182%
> 
> Without further ado, here is chapter one

“That’ll be two dollars and twenty-seven cents.”

 

“Mhm,” Keith handed over the exact change to the cashier of the sketchy Stop&Shop, getting a distrusting glare from the stout, bearded man in front of him. “Just give me the fucking ramen,” he snatched it out of the bagger’s hands, hustling out of the packed store as fast as his weak legs could manage.

 

The twelve-pack of noodles was his lifeline the past few months, living off of whatever income he could get from selling clothes or glasses that he smuggled out of shopping malls, which wasn’t as much as he made back home. He figured that more people wouldn’t have as much money living in Brooklyn, but he was completely wrong: everyone he encountered pretty much had some source of money, or illegally made it happen to pay the bills. Keith, however, was not only jobless, he also went down the illegal path and _still_ made no money.

 

Here he was, nineteen in the middle of the night, stumbling blindly in the crosswalks from lack of sleep, and barely able to cover the costs of his education at Pratt.

 

“Watch where you’re going, idiot,” A stranger scolded him for accidentally stepping on the back of his shoe, nudging him too forcefully for it being a trivial thing. Silently apologizing, Keith grounded himself again, nearly losing his balance from the light touch of the unknown person. The light flashed green for the cars to go, the once-frozen traffic picking up speed once again, appearing bleary and smudged to the sleep-deprived boy on the edge of the sidewalk.

 

 _Stay awake for dinner at least, you stupid ass_ … he mentally yelled at himself, blinking a few times for the sake of him not passing out in the middle of the street – he spent money on ramen for a reason, and that was because he wasn’t going to skip dinner again tonight when he hasn’t ate in two days.

 

Keith anxiously tapped the tip of his tattered Converse on the sidewalk, reminding himself to stay awake and alert in a time like this. Cars were dangerous, and even if he had his license from way back when, he refused to drive, nor own, a single car. His paranoia always won in the end. Shaking the thought out of his head, his eyes focused on the stoplight ahead, waiting impatiently for the pedestrians to be able to cross again.

 

Couples and businessmen strolled passed him with no regard, a few people bumping into him and not even acknowledging they had. _Who would care for someone like me, anyways_? Crossed his mind once again, his heavy eyelids getting harder to keep open. A neon-green color flashed right by him, Keith confusing it for the little pedestrian artwork on the stoplight that signaled it was time to walk over to the other side.

 

Before he could make it onto the road, he tripped over the uneven pavement, slamming flat on his already-bruised face, managing to fall asleep in record timing from the impact.

 

\--

“….ey, are you alright? Hey, buddy, you can’t snooze off in the middle of these streets, ya’ wishing for a death wish?”

 

Peeling his eyelids open, Keith’s blurry vision focused on the person thrashing him awake, a lanky boy smelling of garlic and jalapeno peppers gradually becoming clearer and clearer with each blink. “Thank God, you weren’t some corpse undergoing rigor mortis in front of our shop.” The stranger’s relieved chuckle cancelled out the worried expression they wore, helping the semi-unconscious boy up from the ground. “Let’s get you cleaned up, your forehead is bleeding,” He licked his left thumb, wiping off the splashes of red coating his eyebrow.

 

Nodding silently, Keith was guided along by the taller boy, a thin yet firm arm snaked around his lower back to keep him standing. Whatever spices the man was using continuously wafted into his stinging nose, giving off a spicy sensation enough to make mucus drip out. “Fuck, a nosebleed on top of that?”

 

“No, there’s just snot falling out.”

 

“Even worse, how embarrassing…” Keith muttered, making the unknown person giggle once he began to wipe it off on his old, frayed sweatshirt’s sleeve. “Where are we going, anyways? Isn’t this just a shopping district…”

 

“I live right up our restaurant, can you handle a flight of stairs?”

 

“Of course I can, it’s just a scrape.” Keith snorted, ignoring the stings and aches coming from all over his body. He was convinced that he probably fractured something, but with no money in his pocket, there was no way he was going to get help from the hospital.

 

Three buildings over, there was a brightly-colored place with the word _Paraíso_ lit up in huge letters, flawless artwork painted on the windows of the restaurant. Keith, who only knew ‘hola’ in Spanish – and still mispronounced it on the daily, stared at it in hopes of understanding what it meant, and failing miserably.

 

Millions of different scents bombarded Keith’s stuffy, beat-up nostrils once the couplet entered the clean delicatessen, reading the menu full of foods he never even heard of his entire life. Two carbon-copies of the nameless savior were cleaning up the countertops, humming to the music playing softly inside the store. Even if he’s been living alone for quite a while, he could tell that this place oozed that homey-family vibe, which didn’t help the massive amount of loneliness that he kept bottled up inside for years.

 

“Constantine, you’re actually doing work?!”

 

“Shut up…” The younger brother turned around to glare at the tall boy supporting Keith, nearly dropping the soaked rag onto the floor. “Lance, what the hell are you doing?! We just mopped the floors – he’s gushing blood! Christ!”

 

Lance, or what Keith presumed was his name, chortled nervously once he realized the red droplets on the linoleum underneath their feet. “Don’t tell mama that we brought someone in, okay? She’s going to drown him in questions, and this kid clearly needs some sleep.” Before he could utter a single syllable, Lance was dragging him up the spiral staircase that was beginning to rust. “Alright, you see that door on the right with the scratch on it? That’s the bathroom, wash off the stains on your face while I stock this ramen away.”

 

Any trace of comfort dissolved once Keith saw the massive chunk of wood missing from the door, which was described as just a ‘scratch.’ Suspicion flooded his already-aching stomach, eyes squinting with each step forward in the foreign apartment. Marker scribbles were still visible underneath the poor painting job that still lingered in the restroom, the chemical-esque fumes reminding him of the old shed that Shiro rented out to him when he had nowhere to go.

 

Shaking his head to nullify any memories from resurfacing, he spun the sink’s faucet all the way to the left until steam was visibly emitting from the cascading water, splashing his face with it. The burning sensation that came with nearly-boiling water neutralize the pain of the huge gash by his temple, skin turning red and feeling inflamed from the heat. Fire to him was more welcoming than anything else, his pyromaniac tendencies leading Keith to favor the hotter climates more than the cold.

 

A knock interrupted his stream of subconscious thoughts, Keith mumbling to notify them that it was okay to come in. “I got to do laundry tonight, but here’s a fresh pair of clothes. I can wash yours if you’re okay with that – why is your face even more red than before?” Lance’s voice grew shaky near the end, Keith staring blankly at the boy who made connections between the flushed skin and the sweltering water pouring down the drain. “You aren’t supposed to put hot water on an open wound! Sit down,” Concern dripped from each consonant he croaked, one hand flipping the faucet to the other side while the other pushed Keith on the toilet.

 

Veins were popping out of Lance’s wrists, the silent patient ogling at it to avoid awkward eye contact. He hated being wrong, but he also hated taking advice, which was why Keith was prone to repeating the same mistakes numerous times. “This might hurt a bit, so you can squeeze my hand as hard as you need to. Just try not to dig your nails into me,” his soft tone returned, turning off the running water after drenching the facecloth he brought in.

 

Whenever the rough, wet fabric scraped at the wound on his forehead, Keith gritted his teeth behind his closed lips, eyes squeezing shut from the agony. Even though Lance offered his arm to practically devour via nails, he didn’t want to even inflict the slightest bit of discomfort to the person who was taking care of him – which was his awkward way of saying ‘thank you.’

 

The remaining water in the facecloth was twisted out of the fabric, Lance throwing the wet towel over the bathtub’s edge. A foreboding bottle of peroxide was popped open before Keith could open his eyes, the sight of a cotton ball getting doused in the aqueous hell making his stomach cramp up reflexively. Shaky exhales came from the bleeding boy in an effort to calm himself down, not realizing that the cut has already been sterilized by it after a minute of heavy breathing.

 

“See? Not so bad after all,” Lance chuckled, tossing out the cotton ball that had the same appearance as red watercolors. “Just put a Band-Aid on it for now, and I’ll check up on it in the morning to see if you’ll need stitches. Most likely you won’t, but you can never be too sure.”

 

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

 

The blunt, blurted question made the standing boy’s eyebrow twitch, taken aback from the unexpected comment. “Because people should help people, that’s the human thing to do.”

 

“You aren’t going to get anything out from this, I just don’t get it.”

 

“I don’t need to get anything from helping out, it’s something I wanted to do. Plus, you can’t even properly take care of yourself, and you feed yourself ramen noodles – I don’t know what is worse.” Lance rustled his hand through Keith’s messy, unwashed hair with an overly-friendly grin, “Go take a shower and get dressed, I’ll cook you something else other than cheap ass noodles and MSG.” 

 

Stunned by the nonchalant touching, Keith watched the welcoming acquaintance exit the room, not being able to say anything about his gratitude nor curiosity. Keith was never a very touchy-feely person, but the contact didn’t seem to bother him at all this time. He began twisting the edges of his fringe, particularly the areas were Lance’s fingers roamed, not noticing the surprised blush coating his cheeks. However, he did seem to catch onto how gross his hair really was, and hurried into the shower to slather himself in cheap shampoo and soap.

 

There was a myriad of different shampoo and conditioner bottles on the bathtub’s edge: two with kid-like designs, one being a three-in-one bottle called _Cabana Girl_ , and the last two having a plain design. He wondered why there would be a need to have so many different ones if they all do the same thing, but then again, Keith tended to use _only_ shampoo once a week in his hair, and daily on his body, so he didn’t have a valid opinion on other people’s hygiene. Turning the faucet all the way up, Keith stripped down and left his clothes scattered on the bathroom tiles, knocking over the razor that he did not even see.

 

“Shit,” He croaked out while pulling the curtains to the side, blindly picking it up and placing it on the spot he presumed it was at before. The water pressure was extremely strong, pounding into his back as if it was a hailstorm, and preventing any other noises from entering Keith’s eardrums.

 

In the kitchen, Lance was heating up some of the leftover tortilla soup they had from the night before, scattering some cheese and jalapeños over the chickpeas. The microwave needed to be cleaned, but he figured he’d save that for his Saturday-morning chores, and proceeded to place the bowl inside, heating it up for a full minute.

 

Samuel, his younger brother, peeped out of their shared bedroom of three, his trembling hands holding onto his worn-down stuffed bunny. “What’s wrong, little bud?” Lance walked out of the kitchen all the way down to his younger brother, bending down to be eye-level with each other. “Another nightmare?” Samuel nodded, Lance’s soft tone visibly making him less tense. “Come on, let me make you some tea. You can meet my new friend, too!”

 

“F-friend?” Samuel’s voice was shy as he clearly tried to mask his terror, but the act was transparent enough for Lance to understand how bad of a dream it was.

 

“Yeah, he’s gonna stay here for the night. Promise you’ll make him feel welcome?”

 

Lance’s pinky finger was held out in front of the younger brother, Samuel staring it down before flashing his crooked smile. “Promise,” The two pinky-swore to treat the guest nicely, even though Lance did not even know the guy’s name yet. “What kind of tea do we have?”

 

“Hmm… let’s go check!” Lance suggested, leading Samuel into the kitchen so they both could look for the box of tea. “Licorice, peach, watermelon…”

 

“Licorice! With lots of sugar!”

 

The occasional-lisp of his made an appearance, but the pure enthusiasm in his voice made Lance beam. “Alright, I’ll make it as sweet as you, lil’ guy.” Pinching the chubby cheeks his brother had, he swiftly plucked a bag from the box on the top shelf, and dumped it into a coffee mug full of water. “Is it alright if we just heat it up real quick?” A hum of agreement signaled for him to go ahead, Lance carefully taking the scorching-hot soup out of the microwave and replacing it with the cheap, flavored tea.

 

Luna was still snoring in the room next to where Samuel came out of, still too young to stay up all night without needing a full day to catch up on sleep. Carisa, however, had no regard for her dozing sister, blasting degrading hip hop from her hand-me-down laptop. Nobody understood how she could get away with that when their parents slept right across the hall, but if someone snuck out at one in the morning to get their school bag, it was suddenly ‘a crime’ and worth a punishment. Lance was convinced there was some social hierarchy in the family, and he was definitely not one of the favorite kids.

 

 _Being the middle child was not easy, especially when the oldest two already moved out and he had to step up to take care of everyone_. The negative thoughts were shoved to the side as he blankly bore into the bowl of soup on the countertop, noting how many seeds were in the chopped jalapeños to get his mind off the family drama. Three were in the middle of the largest pepper, the rest of them having either two or four pits despite being more small.

 

“Something smells de _lic_ ious.”

 

The playful undertone made Lance snap out of his brooding, turning around to see the wounded boy dressed in his own clothes. “I don’t know, is it the soup? Or is it the lovely smell of soap after not showering for seventy years?”

 

A faked sneer was directed towards him, Keith sitting himself down on the barstool closest to the wall. “Probably both. Is this going to be really spicy?”

 

“Yes-“

“No-“

 

The two brothers glared down the other, disagreeing on the heat index of the dish. Keith’s gaze switched back-and-forth between the silently-feuding siblings, gaining amusement from the supposedly-intimidating twitch in the child’s furrowed eyebrow. “I’m gonna eat it anyways, thanks for dinner.”

 

Samuel snorted at the offended brother, snubbing Lance until he reached his bedroom with his steaming tea. Keith chuckled at the kid’s advanced sense of humor half-way through his first spoonful, causing him to choke after swallowing it. “Fuck, it’s so hot.”

 

“Thanks, I know.” The dirtiest squint sent chills down Lance’s spine, but he just laughed the uncomfortable sensation away before planting himself in a chair. “So, before I forget, what is your name? I never caught it, and it’d be nice to know about someone before I let them stay over. Just in case…. _Taking precautions_.”

 

“Dude, I’m not gonna go kill your brother and become the next Walter White or whatever, and I’m not some alien or cryptid that came from the depths of hell. I’m just an unfortunate guy prone to accidents, if you couldn’t already tell.” Keith pointed at the less-inflamed cut on his temple for extra emphasis, “And my name is Keith. I’m pretty sure yours is Lance, unless my hearing is going to shit, too.”

 

Stealing a bite from the soup without notifying Keith, Lance licked off any residue of the sauce from his lips in the midst of bobbing his head, quietly acknowledging all the words Keith spoke. “You’re correct about that, but I’m gonna need some more before I feel at ease – not trying to be rude, it’s just that I can be a bit paranoid at some times and I don’t want to treat you like some criminal when you’re not, you feel?” Keith hummed during the pause, understanding why he would be cautious at such a time. “Well… I’m Lance, as you know, and I’m in my second year at Pratt for my Photography BFA. Nothing else is really too interesting, if I’m honest.”

 

Brushing back the wet bangs behind his ear, Keith pieced together a simple introduction that would make him not appear to be some serial-killing extraterrestrial. “I also go to Pratt, believe it or not, but for Psychology. And I minor in cultural studies, but I’m not too fluent in other languages, so don’t confuse the two. I’m literally broke off my ass because I impulsively decided to take it, but that’s alright.”

 

“It’s strange that we never saw each other on campus before, though.”

 

“That’s a good point. Ah, but then again, I tend to just keep to myself, so…”

 

“Well, now you got yourself a new friend,” Lance nudged him amiably, his cheesy yet adorable smile causing some hidden soup to drip down to his bottom lip. “Can’t go ghosting on me now either, and I’ll teach you some Spanish if you want. Kinda’ need to know it if you’ll be visiting here.” He stated matter-of-factly, his upper lip sucking on the spot where there was a drop of sauce.

 

Keith didn’t know why the action was cute, but he immediately closed off any thoughts about how attractive the boy that he just met was. Nothing about the perfectly-straight teeth of his, nor the ocean blue irises he had, and most definitely not the long eyelashes he was gifted with. It’s fine to admit he is nice looking, but Keith refused to fall for someone ever again.

 

“You can take the bowl into our room, too. I share a room with Constantine – the little shit you met downstairs real quick, and then Sammie, the one who _hurt my feelings_ in the middle of the kitchen, but nonetheless!”  Swinging his left arm around Keith’s neck, Lance gently rocked the boy in his seat. “Let’s both get some sleep before my parents wake up, yeah?”

 

“Sure…”

 

The touchy-nature of his new ‘friend’ still was strange, but Keith accepted his fate by now, being lead along by the taller boy to the room he’d be sleeping in. Honestly, it was the first time in a while that he was in another person’s room not for sleeping together, but for actually _sleeping_. Together.

 

Constantine groaned into his pillow once the light was flicked on, Samuel already knocked out again on his bed despite his nightmare from earlier. Clothes – both clean and dirty, were askew on the questionably-alive teenager’s comforter, while Lance’s was fairly neat and tidy. A perfectly-symmetrical alignment of pictures hung above the bedframe, gradually getting more colorful the closer it was to the bottom. Beyond the sparse space between the photos, there was almost no empty areas on the walls across the room, taped posters and art covering the charcoal-grey paint, and a small section in the corner with graffiti on it.

 

Lance jumped on his creaky mattress, cracking the bones in his back until it made one final, sickening sound. “Ahh… sweet, sweet relief of gradual arthritis…” Keith was about to retort that comment with factual evidence about how that isn’t likely, but the boy already began to lift his top off while lying down, defying any laws of physics by managing to get out of it just by one swift movement.

 

“Um… should I sleep on the floor or something?”

 

A hand reached out to drag him back up, his soup nearly toppling over from the sudden pull. “You can sleep on the bed, if you don’t mind it being so small. And if not, I’ll go on the floor: the guest never sleeps on the bed, dumbo.” He was propped up on one elbow during his short spiel, feet swinging slowly in the air without missing a beat to Carisa’s music. “Here, I’ll take the inside if you want. I doubt I’m gonna be going underneath the covers if that helps, since I’m literally a furnace during every month and season.”

 

Keith didn’t have the strength in him to fight back, and the idea of sleeping was hypnotizing enough for him to reluctantly give into the lively boy. Guzzling down the remaining sauce in the bowl, he made a mental note to get up early and clean it, and squeezed into the bed. Another suggestive and lewd song came from the adjacent room, unsettling Keith to the core of his being. No existential crisis or hunger could beat the unease he felt, trying to focus on anything else but the lyrics resonating throughout the thin walls. He managed to fall asleep after staring at the nape of Lance’s neck for such a long time, feeling strained physically and emotionally.

 

\--

 

Something was itchy, but Keith couldn’t tell where it was coming from, scratching whatever he was already touching. His mind was still not fully awake, and both eyelids were way too heavy to blink open. To no avail, the tickling sensation continued no matter how much he touched the same spot, his subconscious-conscience growing more annoyed and alive by the second.

 

“ _Heh_ … it tickles…”

 

The soft mumble flowed into his eardrums, turning on a trigger in his brain to realize what was going on: Keith’s eyelids flew open, blurry eyes fixating on the image in front of him. Lance’s face was positioned on his upper-arm, mouth slightly parted but no snores coming out. His fingers were coiled against the small curls on Lance’s nape, fingernails lightly scratching at the smooth, sensitive skin without permission. Flinching, the bewildered boy tried to get up from the bed, but was pushed back down by Lance’s legs being draped around his waist. The odd position was not nearly as odd as how they even managed to get into this stance overnight, and why Lance was still sound asleep despite Keith thrashing himself out of his tender embrace.

 

Both brothers were nowhere in sight, along with the presumably crusted-over bowl he used the previous night. “Fuck my life,” Keith grunted while his now-free hand rustled through his bedhead. Coffee was calling his name, and he was not ethical enough to refuse making coffee at someone else’s house the first time he was over. Without any source of caffeine, Keith would be an immobile zombie, paler than the moon, and have eyes completely bloodshot that looked more like a hemorrhage than anything.

 

His toes made contact with the warm carpet of the bedroom, which was a plus to staying over someone’s house: his current residence was an abandoned shack of Shiro’s with fucking wooden _glaciers_ as a ground. Keith bid the waking friend of his no attention, slumping straight out of the room after his entire left side bumped into the doorframe. He was on a mission for some god damn coffee, and no forming bruise would be any greater priority than that cup of sweet, satisfying, scalding joe.

 

The deafening sound of vacuums made the thumping behind his forehead double in strength, all the kids doing some sort of housework this early in the morning without a single complaint. Samuel, and the younger sister Keith didn’t know the name of, placed the juices and jams on the table, while both parents were cooking something that had bacon in it.

 

“Um… is there any coffee here?”

 

Everything went silent after the strange man spoke, Carisa extending backwards enough to rip the vacuum’s cord right out of the outlet. The entire family, albeit one was missing in action, peered at the unknown figure in the dining room.

 

“Keith, what are you doing?” Lance’s morning voice chimed from across the hall, Carisa gazing back and forth between the sleepy duo. “Mama, pap, this is my friend, Keith. Sorry I invited him over without your permission…” He paused mid-sentence to allow himself to yawn.

 

“ _That_ kind of friend?” Carisa leaned against the vacuum, but Constantine elbowed her right in the abdomen, Keith not even hearing what she said from the jumbled Spanish he could make out from the two parents.

 

Lance rolled his eyes at his fighting siblings, going ahead and joining the conversation his parents were having in hurried Spanish. Even though he could pick up on some words here and there, Keith was nervously fidgeting from not comprehending what they were saying – not like he didn’t know he was not supposed to hear it, anyways.

 

About a minute of heated speech and excessive hand gestures, the trio were finished talking to one another, both Lance’s mom and dad having welcoming expressions on. “Welcome to our home, Keith. There’s some coffee right here, do you need any creamer or sugar?”

 

“Ah, it’s fine, I can drink it black.”

 

“ _What kind of monster_ …” Lance muttered to himself in disgust, effortlessly swooping two mugs off the shelf above him. Faint hums were heard from Carisa’s uselessly-large headphones, the two finishing their argument with a mutual scoff. Keith, who was not someone used to a family setting and the dynamics between them, could tell just how dysfunctional the household was in less than a day, feeling tense from the friendly-yet-agitated atmosphere in the kitchen.

 

A cup with the phrase ‘World’s Best Dad’ in Comic Sans was held out in front of him, Constantine’s mouth agape from the blatant flirting of his – that wasn’t really flirting, but could seem like it. “Um… Lance… you gave me your dad’s mug.”

 

Squinting, he crooked his head to the side to see what cup he picked out, a mischievous smirk developing once he unkinked his neck. “That’s not my dad’s, that’s _mine_.” A final blow was landed once he winked, and Keith could hear the _Mortal Kombat_ ‘fatality’ bouncing in his head from the interaction. “Take your cup of coffee, _daddy_!” Lance prolonged the last word and raised his pitch while teasing a flustered Keith, Carisa snickering in the background at the reactions of everyone who heard the flirtatious coo.

 

“Just give me the fucking daddy cup,” Keith sputtered, not noticing that Carisa was dying from the unnecessary addition of the word ‘fucking.’ He had officially given up on his sanity this morning, gulping down a huge amount of coffee and burning his tongue in the process just to have relief from any more inappropriate jokes. He was on the brink of turning twenty, and soon he would be a legal adult – this was no time to be making sex puns and mischief at nine o’clock.

 

Even though he was focusing on distancing himself from the joyous family, he kept finding himself eyeing Lance down and being oddly conscious of his presence. The farther away he was, the more he was concentrating on him being in the same room, and it was distracting to the boy who had psychology terms to remember for his exam soon. Although Keith wasn’t a religious person, he kept mentally saying ‘god damn’ whenever he saw the gorgeous grin that Lance had, half of his mind remembering the last unit he took notes on while the other portion was preoccupied with bawdy ideas.

 

His range of view kept trailing up to the area where Lance was, suspiciously ogling at his friend behind his kink-appreciating mug. “So, Keith, are you allergic to anything? Vegetarian?”

 

Keith choked on the sip he took before Lance’s mom questioned him, pounding his fist into his chest until he could properly breath again. “I wish I had the mental fortitude to be a vegetarian, but I do eat meat, and I am not allergic to anything…. Thank you for asking, though.” The pleasant lady oozed off warmth, and Keith was suddenly reminded of how lonely he’s been for most of his life. Friends aside, there was always that wide void inside of him longing for a family, and never finding something to fill up that hole. He could only sugarcoat that for so long, forcing himself to think things like ‘I wouldn’t be able to do this if I had parents’ or ‘being independent is better’ during his rebellious years.

 

Sure, he had Shiro, but he would never live down those years of being an orphan and yearning for anything but that sense of isolation.

 

“So, where do you live around here? I can drop you off later, yanno’, so you don’t end up knocked out on a dangerous street road and bleed to death.” Lance’s laughter calmed him down a bit, the unavoidable emotions getting pushed back to where they were before.

 

“Um… I actually, I think I can go back by myself…”

 

“No way, you said so yourself that you’re prone to accidents. Let’s not have another ‘unfortunate’ incident, yeah?”

 

He didn’t want to be honest about where he was living, the consuming shame of basically being a squatter eating at his heart once again. Shiro was off traveling for his job, and that meant Keith had to fend for himself in that tiny shack, not even having the keys to the house it was attached to. “Really, it’ll be okay. I can handle it myself,” He said the exact opposite of what was true, still not accepting the fact that he was still sore from the fall yesterday and the week-long fatigue.

 

“You look like you have a fever, and I’m really worried something will go wrong if I leave you by yourself in this state,” Lance leaned over the table and pressed the front of his hand to Keith’s forehead, the mocha-colored skin being drastically colder than his own. “Yep, not gonna happen, you’re getting a ride back and taking some Motrin with you. Constantine, where’s the bike at?” He stepped to the side, hellbent on taking care of someone who wanted to curl into a hole for abusing his kindness for so long.

 

Not only was he lying, he was being a burden to the whole family, no matter how sweet and congenial they were. “Lance, stop, really. It’s not your problem, and it’s not like I want to go back to that shithole. I don’t even live there, okay?” Lance froze from the cold tone in his words, Keith averting his gaze to his nervously-bouncing leg. “I have no money, do you really think I could be staying somewhere? That’s not possible, and I don’t feel like selling myself to some sugar daddy in order to have a permanent place. So I’m homeless, and that’s fine by me, and I can go back by myself when I want-“

 

A pair of hands lightly slapped themselves onto his cheeks, ceasing any more word vomit from coming out. “I appreciate you telling me the truth, but I don’t like that you are living by yourself in this part of the city. I don’t even let ma’ throw out the trash alone, alright? You’re no exception to that, especially now that you’re my friend. Let’s figure this out together, but for now, I guess you can stay here… even though it’s a bit cramped, it’ll do. And I’m not gonna allow you to pimp yourself out, either. Got it?”

 

The surprisingly-stern and sheer power behind each sentence made all the edginess evaporate out of Keith, who gawked at the boy that squished his cheeks in an unattractive manner. “O… o _l_ ay,” His compliance was messed up from the forceful touch on his face.

 

“I’m sure we can find you a cheap place to stay in no time! But let’s start by getting that fever down.” That dazzling smile made a comeback, cutting through the tension in the dining room.

 

None of the other family members really saw, nor heard, what altercation happened by the kitchen table, too busy finishing cooking and cleaning. Keith figured he should probably learn from them, since he’s not a very organized person, and believes he’s entitled to eavesdrop on private conversations he’s not the slightest bit involved in. Lance swiftly navigated his way through the kitchen, getting some tablets from the cabinet and the black pepper for his mother.

 

He made up his mind to get out of here as fast as he could, already believing he’s another hardship for the large family that owns the restaurant downstairs. And even if he would have to stay here, he hoped that Lance and him would never get on the discussion of sexuality, because the menacing cross hanging in the middle of the living room was an ominous sign for him to be careful treading those waters. Keith would not relive that dreadful feeling ever again, not like the last time.

* * *

 


	2. TWO: On Melancholy Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the pacing is a completely whack disaster, multiple song references are introduced because why not?! copyright can't fight me, keith is an alcoholic and problematic, a troublesome person is introduced LOWWWWKEEEYYY, and an emo epiphany is revealed bc will any of my books ever be happy? no. beyond one of them but that isn't included. 
> 
> trigger warnings: under-aged drinking (it's in America & they are nineteen), mentions of drug use, violence, mentions of blood/wounds/scars, mentions of suicide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you go in thinking this is gonna be a happy chapter, you played yourself 
> 
> IT TOOK A MONTH TO WRITE THIS AND I'M SORRY I'M SO UNINSPIRED AND BUSY WITH EXAMS AND I JUST CAME BACK FROM MY VACATION AND I'M ALSO WRITING A SCREENPLAY SO IT'S BEEN BUSY, BUT I'M HERE. will check this another day for any grammar/spelling errors so if there are any, let me know so i can fix it! :) ENJOY THE EMO

White porcelain plates, the cheap paint on them nearly scratched off from overuse, were piled up next to the boy that Keith couldn’t help focusing on the entire morning. The new friend of his reminded him so much of the summer months, the calming feeling of relief and being free from all your worries before the year picks up again.

 

“Are you done, sweetie?” The sudden voice startled Keith enough to jolt in his seat, eyes trailing to Lance’s mom rather than her own son.

 

“Oh, um – yeah, yeah, I’m good. I can clean it, though-“

 

“No, no, sit down, you’re our guest. Sit tight and look pretty,” Lance’s mom raked her dry hand through Keith’s shaggy hair, wearing the most lovely and jovial smile he’s ever seen. Nonetheless, the so-called happiness she exuded was enough to make the doubt inside of him triple in power, wondering why she could have such a brilliant grin yet tired eyes.

 

Throughout the thick veil that shielded the stress the family had, there were a few cracks that made it transparent enough for him to see in. Something was strange with the tense nature that some of the siblings had with each other, particularly when he noticed the youngest two kids having the most attention from their shared parents. The dichotomous nature of the relationships between everyone was a topic he didn’t feel comfortable thinking about, however – how was he supposed to understand such obscure ideas when he’s been alone all his life?

 

Leaning back in his seat, Keith slumped down until he resembled an acute angle, stretching the cramped legs of his from the wicked sleep he had last night. The threatening cross that hung only feet away from his seat kept dictating his own actions, along with the fear of causing unneeded drama amongst the already-strained family.

 

\--

 

Deli slicers suddenly was more of a threat than the religious crucifix in Lance’s living room, Keith decided, eyes firmly planted on the ham being diced into ridiculously-thin pieces. “Once in a Lifetime” was roaring throughout the entire restaurant, making the scene unraveling in front of him intimidate his poor, tortured soul.

 

“Lance, could you please stop playing Pidge’s meme playlist?”

 

“Carisa, you see, I would, but if she comes in before we open, she’ll chop my head off like _this_ ,” Lance slammed the slicer’s handle downwards, the meat being cut into perfectly. Keith almost shat himself from the action, but he squeaked a bit instead. “Oh, does this bad boy scare you, Mr. Psychologist?”

 

“I’ve read a fair share of conspiracy theories in my life, and that… thing is way more horrifying and deadly than any cryptid Mickey Mouse in existence.” Two offended snorts came from the nearly-identical siblings, carrying on the prep work in unison.

 

Constantine kicked the front door open, scuffing the glass a bit that Carisa just finished cleaning. “Sup, bitches? Got the beans and shit,” He throws the huge bag of beans over to Lance as if it weighed nothing, the skinny boy catching it nonchalantly. “ _Kobe_!”

 

Chuckles erupted from the three family members, their laughs in perfect harmony to the outsider watching them from afar. This was more of what he had in mind of what families were like, instead of the lingering tension and favoritism-theories in mind. Tender affection radiated from them, even if Carisa smacked the wet towel against Constantine’s hip for desecrating her hard work. Keith caught himself with a bit of a smile on his lips while he stared at them, one hand supporting his chin lazily. Just observing others being happy was starting to have a calming effect on him, not feeling on edge or the need to suck up to someone. Being with Lance and the others was such a completely polarized environment than what he was used to with Shiro, or the people that took him home for a night within the past few years. It was refreshing, welcoming: _hell_ , even entertaining to an extent.

 

His eyes swooped up to Lance, practically zooming in on the veins that popped out in his hand while swiftly wiping off the multicolored chalk that spelled out the special menu from yesterday. The blackboard was clearly beginning to be coated in chalk residue and dust, growing in age from frequent usage. Another daily special was written in yellow, Keith noticing how Lance was using his left hand instead of his right for the cursive letters, and the right for the decals and prices with blue chalk. It was the first time he saw someone who was ambidextrous, and he wasn’t sure how he could be so good at printing in either hand while his handwriting looked like an alien-foreign language.

 

Both parents ran down the stairs, Rita raking through her wet, curly mane of hair until it was in a messy bun, revealing the sun tattoo that was hidden at the base of her neck. It suited her to an unnatural degree, Keith decided before his attention went back to his friend. “Lance, has Katie come in yet? She needs to help fix our stove before customers come in.” Rita’s voice was fretful, most likely concerned with the small amount of time before the shop officially opened on Saturdays.

 

“Not yet, but probably in a little bit-“

 

“Ya’ rang?”

 

A Midwestern accent rang through his ears, triggering a memory of when he lived in Kansas and Texas for a year with Shiro before he migrated again to the East Coast. His eyes widened from the sudden culture shock – he’s been surrounded by heavy Brooklyn accents the past two and a half years – gawking at the stranger with an auburn bush of unevenly-tangled curls. A pair of glasses were brushing back their bangs, the black frames making their outfit clash less than it would with colored ones.

 

Lance’s face lit up in an instant, dusting off any of the chalk from his palms. “Pidge! About time, we need you to go tinker on the oven or something, go work your magic. ‘ll treat you to an extra shot of espresso.”

 

“Hmm… make it two additional ones, and I’ll even make sure the circuiting is working back there.”

 

“Whatever that means, it’s a deal.”

 

Katie – or Pidge, as Lance called them – ungracefully swung their bag to the ground as if it was some wrestling KO, rustling around until they gathered all the necessary tools and the _un_ necessary belt to go with them. Keith, someone who wore fingerless gloves whenever he pleased, hypocritically judged them for wearing something semi-practical.

 

Everyone’s spirits seemed to be lifted once the music transitioned to a new Gorillaz song, the ‘emo kid’ side of Keith making an appearance as he tapped his fingers to the beat. It gave him enough motivation to _actually_ begin studying the psychology notes he had on his phone, the rest still back at the shack he didn’t quite want to return to just yet. A few reassuring pats on the back from the family members made him feel somewhat focused, despite being distracted by hums that were progressively getting louder.

 

“Hold it down, dare…” Lyrics continued to be sung out by Lance, who was the only one left in the room beyond Keith. He didn’t even realize that the rest of the family went into the kitchen to tidy up and turn on all the equipment back there. Nonetheless, another talent of Lance’s was noted by the boy who somehow multitasked on cramming his notes and watching the other dance behind the counter, rolling out the dough for pastries. “Jump with them all and move it,” a slew of slices followed each syllable, expertly cutting through it almost like a machine.

 

A ting made the music pause, Pidge yelling for Lance to check his messages so the ‘song could make them deaf instead.’ Although he was reluctant, Lance dropped his prep work to meet his friend’s demands, turning off his notifications while opening the message. The pout he wore immediately switched to a suspiciously-smug expression, crooking his head to the side to make eye contact with Keith.

 

“How does a party sound?”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope,” The ‘p’ was purposely popped.

“I don’t even know your friends.”

“Pleaaaseeeeeeeeeeee, pretty pleaseeeeee.”

 

Pidge’s head poked out behind the push-door, fixing their glasses to stare at the two bickering colleagues. “Hey, whatever your name is, it’s best to just agree and ditch him later. He’s too stubborn sometimes.”

 

“Yeah, listen to the boss. She’s right.”

 

Groaning in his seat, he dunked his head into both palms now, nodding his head in defeat. There was no way he could fight against someone who had the cutest puppy-dog eyes he’s ever seen, and to be honest, there was no realistic chance of him getting study time in if he was going to stay here. Might as well do something productive rather than lazing around and pretending to cram, right? While he began to rationalize his decision to go out, “Dare” continued to play throughout the store, followed by a few more indie and punk tunes until the clock reached ten-thirty, the genre switching to a more-acoustic vibe.

 

Keith reached a conclusion after roughly ten minutes and seven orders: if he’d have to go back to the shack and get a change of clothes before the event, he’ll also fetch his notes and necessities out of there. Even if he wasn’t positive he’d _actually_ follow that plan, it made him feel less guilty for abandoning his responsibilities for a sudden party.

 

\--

 

Water splashed Lance’s face and dripped onto his sweat-drenched shirt, washing up a bit before changing his clothes. His old friend was applying her makeup in the free space he didn’t occupy, leaning over the counter to make sure her wings were flawless. Since she wouldn’t be driving nor reading, Pidge mindlessly discarded her specs on Lance’s perfectly-made bed.

 

“So, Lance, my man. My bud. Compadre.”

 

“Yes, Pidge,” He squeezed out the last bits of toothpaste onto the wet bristles, gaze shifting towards her to silently ask what she has in mind.

 

“Who is the mullet dude? Seems like he kept staring at you or his work the entire time he was in there.”

 

Choking on minty saliva, Lance spat out some of it to control the amount of times he coughed, Pidge giggling from the unexpected reaction. “Nah, you’re seeing things. If anything, _Keith_ was looking straight ahead because of that huge gash on his forehead making his eyes hurt. Gives me a headache just thinking about it…”

 

“Whatever you say, I’m just pretty sure that I’m right because I had five shots of that hellish espresso and am hyperaware of everything that is going on around me right now.”

 

“Stop spitting nonsense, silly.”

 

His thumb pressed into the middle of her forehead, proceeding to brush his teeth with a small dab of paste left on the bristles. Pidge glared at him with her signature scheming face, but he continued to pay attention to his reflection in the clean mirror in pure spite. Lance figured he was lucky that he didn’t have to wash his hair until later, still not greasy even though he just finished working.

 

Pidge, on the other hand, carried on her intensive makeup routine, concentrating on just how much foundation she’d need to cover the array of pimples by her hairline. “You think Hunk invited Nyma this time?”

 

“I’m pretty sure he learned last time not to do that,” A weak chuckle followed, “And if it so happens that she comes, what am I going to do, ignore her like we’re in middle school? It’s been a few months, anyways.”

 

“But-“

 

“Not my problem,” Lance gargled some tap water before spitting again, wiping any residue off his lips with his wrist. “I’m going to have a good time, and maybe get a little wasted, but not to talk to my ex. Speaking of, we should prob tell him which toppings to get on the pizza.”

 

 “Agreed.”

 

Yawning his way out of the bathroom, Lance started to undress in the middle of the hallway, hoisting his top off from the collar’s backside. He was set on applying a thousand layers of deodorant on after how hot it was downstairs, not recognizing that someone was already sat on his bed.

 

A series of grunts escaped once he stretched out his tense muscles, his right thumb massaging his left shoulder blade until it _clicked_. The same hand traveled down to meet the other, pairing up to unbuckle and unzip the restraining skinny jeans clinging onto his sweaty legs.

 

Dancing himself out of the denim death trap, Lance curled the pants up and tossed them into the messy hamper across the room. He headed straight to the closet after swiping the deodorant off the dresser, applying it slowly as he pondered over what to wear. Considering how the weather would most likely drop late in the evening, he tugged out a long, dark-black pea coat with a faded-pink tee, and threw that back onto the bed behind him.

 

Once again, an exhausted yawn filled the empty silence of the room, Lance idly scratching at the nape of his neck until his mouth closed again. Muffled breaths caught him off-guard, twisting his head back in an unnatural fashion to see what that was. “Sam, what do you think you are doing, silly?” Lance muttered with a bit of surprise coating his voice, the intruder having the thrown clothes covering them whole.

 

A shaky hand pushed back the coat from veiling their face, a spooked visage staring back at the almost-naked boy. “Um…”

 

“Keith? What are you doing back here so quick?” Lance’s laughter barked out, helping his friend up from the awkward position. “You should’ve told me it was you, sorry for that.”

 

Keith shook his head violently, fingers curling up into a fist once he was sitting up straight. “Sorry, I really didn’t… know how to just say that I was _here_? The timing was really weird, I mean, you walked right by me without noticing.” His irises moved to the other side, avoiding the undressed boy in front of him. Amused from his actions, Lance snatched the clothes into his arms, quickly maneuvering his way into the tee without noticing the gaze burning holes in his chest.

 

“It’s all good, I just have to get ready before Pidge starts complaining about being late,” His words were stifled from the fabric covering his mouth, forcefully squeezing his head through the hole. “You look great, too. Nice side-swap thingy going on with your bangs.”

 

Lance’s fingers lunged out to swirl the chunk of hair for emphasis, Keith blushing from the comment and unexpected touch. “I just threw on whatever I found back at the shed…” He coughed into his balled fist, trying not to look at the watermelon-printed boxers right in his line of sight. “Would you mind putting on some pants first?”

 

“Right. I’m on it.”

 

Bundles of giggles came from the door, Pidge watching the whole scene unravel between the half-nude and flustered boy. Keith _craved death_ like never before, burying his face in his hands from humiliation. If his intuition was right, that mischievous kid would never let this be forgotten, the encounter being the brunt of inside jokes for years. “Keith, could you toss me my bag? I forgot my pins in there, and I refuse to look like the canopy of a dead tree.”

 

A few seconds of awkward silence passed until he realized what she asked, ferociously bobbing his head and bending over to get the backpack. Indeed, there was a whole new pack of light brown bobby pins inside, Pidge thanking him three times before heading back to the bathroom. By the time the blundering exchange was done, Lance had buttoned up a new pair of black skinny jeans, moving onto finding a pair of unmatched socks and his scuffed-up Doc Martins.

 

Everyone in this house seemed to have nice outfits – although there weren’t many clothes hanging in the closet, it was clear that the siblings often shared them or got hand-me-downs. Despite that, there was an actual aesthetic God in front of him, dressed as sharp as possible and it was such a shocking improvement from the jerseys and basketball shorts most guys wore.

 

“Is this spicy enough? Or do I look like an actual fruit?” Lance asked himself, posing in front of the cracked mirror hanging loosely in the corner.

 

“It’s great, really. Are we heading out or what?”

 

The accidental snappy tone made him instantly regret his words, but Lance didn’t seem phased one bit. “Yeah, just let me get my phone and we’ll head out. You sure you’re good with going tonight?”

 

Throwing the gorgeous boy a thumbs up, Keith swung himself off the creaky mattress and gazing over his appearance one more time. Red was practically all he wore, but he made an effort to throw together something nice if he was going to meet new people: a grey checkerboard flannel, rolled up jeans with accidental holes in the knees from wearing them too often, and the other pair of shoes he owned beyond Converse – Vans. He had to admit, the three of them looked amazing for a simple party, but he had an excuse to be extra with his looks, especially if he wanted to make a good impression on the people in Lance’s social circle.

 

Fiddling with his cracked phone, Lance locked his arm with Keith’s, escorting him out of the bedroom and meeting up with Pidge outside the shop. Tons of pedestrians threw them confused glances, wondering why a trio dressed that nice were outside a closed restaurant. “Alright, so we’re gonna need to hurry down a couple of blocks before we reach the townhouse. I’m pretty sure we have the right address.”

 

“It’s not at Hunk’s?”

 

“Man, his neighbors called the cops last time, remember? It’s at that dude Robin or whatever’s place. From sophomore year?”

 

“I thought they hated each other.”

 

Lance shrugged the conversation away, the three of them strolling down a mix of deserted and busy streets. Keith still saw a bit of blood where he fell the night before, but he didn’t want to bring that up, purposely brushing his fringe the other way to cover the unattractive Band-Aid hiding the sore gash. His nails ended up scratching at his cuticles the longer they went down the road, unsure exactly where they were going. The anxiety and suspense of the party was making him physically itch for a fun time, any sign of patience being thrown out. The second he could smell the stench of pot and whiskey, the other two attendees let out a big ‘whoop’ of excitement, Lance dragging the sound out lazily.  

 

“Lance! What’s good?” A slightly-shorter, dark-skinned stranger greeted them at the door, dressed sharply with a tie-dyed bandana wrapped around his forehead, bangs hanging over it. His entire outfit couldn’t be pulled off by anyone else Keith has seen so far at the gig, but he figured that he’ll let it slide.

 

“Ready to get lit off my ass, how about you?”

 

“Too late for that, my dude,” The unnamed guy took another drag of a thick blunt, blowing clouds and puffs of smoke in Keith’s direction. “Friend of yours, or-“ A crash was heard through Tame Impala’s deafening music resonating in the dorm house, the four of them shuddering from the commotion. “Rolo, I swear, if you broke another vase I’m going to get angry!... Anyways, come on in, I’ll be back in a minute.”

 

Astonished by the quick pace of events unfolding within a minute of arriving, Keith sighed to relieve himself of any remaining tension in his body, allowing room for true fun to web its way into his core. Pidge already parted from the two boys, giving a white-haired girl a complex handshake before getting a drink offered to her. People were communicating with words – slurred, but words nonetheless, which was foreign to Keith. Parties were a way to get drunk off his ass and forget about his problems with money, maybe go home with a guy or two and wake up with fifteen percent memory of the night-out.

 

To be frank, there was nobody who caught his eye: sure, there were good-looking guys around, but most of them were preoccupied with another girl or slinging sexist and homophobic ‘jokes’ with their ‘bros.’ He should have been more cognizant that this was a dorm party after all, at a _frat_ townhouse – clearly, the Greek letters were not enough of a warning.

 

“Fuck this,” Keith brushed past Lance, swiping a bottle of vodka off the counter of alcoholic gifts and guzzling down a quarter of it in a matter of seconds. He was preparing himself for a night of blurred memories anyways, who cares if it’s a fight with a judgmental douchebag? With one hand clutching onto vodka, another reaching out and dragging Lance to the living room, Keith started his mission of the night – one, get completely obliterated, and two, have a great time with his new friend.

 

More students and suspicious adults were crowding in after a few minutes of Lance and Keith passing the SKYY bottle back and forth, giggling whenever the either spilled a bit on their jeans. They both threw a slew of jokes at each other, progressively getting worse with each swig they took of the shitty drink. And even if the place was practically oozed out testosterone with all the sporty memorabilia around, Keith felt somewhat at ease – whether it was because there was someone he was warming up to next to him, or his blood alcohol content reaching to a dangerous level, it was a fuzzy feeling to not need to sleep around to be comfortable.

 

“Shit, we’re all out of vodka,” Lance tipped the empty bottle over for emphasis, a tiny giggle following the action that was unfairly adorable to the other. With the addition of Crystal Castles gradually becoming fuzzier in Keith’s eardrums, the numbness of drinking half a bottle of vodka started to affect his five senses and feelings. How could he think of his new friend as cute, when he knew it would only end horribly again? “Anythin’ else you like?”

 

Keith shrugged at the comment, too surprised at his sprouting attraction towards the other to verbalize what drinks he liked. The number of girls in the room seemed to multiply when he noticed Lance was no longer sitting with him, his eyes focusing on the ones that sparked a conversation with his friend once he walked over to get them some more booze. A bottle of cheap, off brand tequila was held tightly in the tanned hand of Lance’s, the other waving at the unfamiliar girl who called his name across the hallway. Nevertheless, he refused to label it as ‘jealousy,’ undermining it as _hyperawareness_ of what was happening all around him, even if he had no clue how many people tripped over his feet from being too tipsy or drugged out of their minds.

 

Blinking every other second, his blurry eyes seemed to magnify on the veins popping out on Lance’s slim hand, the dark blue tone vaguely noticeable underneath the brown skin of his.

 

“Alright, see you!” That dazzling smile of his was powerful enough to make Keith’s attention fixate on the blindly-white teeth he possessed, the curious boy wondering if he needed braces or not as a kid to have that gorgeous of a simper. Or how his thin, slightly brownish-pink lips could be such a complimentary feature to his entire face of sharp attributes. “Hope this is fine, Cimarrón isn’t the best but it’ll do.”

 

“Of course. It’s not the worst I’ll ever have,” Keith snorted, gulping down a huge amount of it after Lance popped it open. His teeth gritted tight from the aftertaste it gave, sticking his tongue out from the flavor. “Shit, it isn’t that bad… but it’s still bad…”

 

“Picky, aren’t we?”

 

As if he was an expert, Lance pinched his nose before downing about a fourth of the drink, perfectly fine after it. And Keith, who was always down for being competitive, silently challenged him by copying his technique, the two continuing to share the bottle to see who would give up first.

 

The lights were switched off before they finished the entire jug, one of Keith’s favorite songs transitioning in. A group of drunk girls hollered out in joy, rushing over to meet up with the rest and starting to dance together. “I didn’t know that many people enjoyed The Weeknd,” Lance chuckled, watching more people join in and grind against one another.

 

“I love this song more than I love myself.”

 

“Is that really a standard for how good a song is?”

 

Keith’s mouth fell agape from the tease, Lance winking once they made eye contact. “Asshole!” After nudging the other for his insult, he rose from the worn-out loveseat, downing the last of the beverage in a single gulp.

 

“Dance for me, _daddy_.” Lance smacked the other drunk’s ass jokingly, recalling the incident from earlier in the day purposely. The deserted red cup next to him now belonged to Lance, sipping the fruity cocktail while waiting for Keith to respond.

 

Alcohol was pumping into his bloodstream by now, turning on his alter ego – _Party Keith_ , who was equally as entertaining as deadly. “ _Daddy_ says let’s go.” Snatching the solo cup from Lance’s grasp, Keith bit down into the cheap colored plastic to bring his friend out to where the others were dancing, taking away any excuse for avoiding the challenge. Both corners of his lips were curling up in anticipation, teeth leaving an indent in the cup before it was taken back by Lance.

 

“You’re making a rookie mistake.”

“Really now?”

“Mhmm,” His pupils were more dilated than before, Keith still being able to distinguish them in the dark room.

“Show, not tell.”

 

Keith should have bit his words, for his fragile soul couldn’t contain another attraction towards another person, and that happened before he knew it. Drunk feelings aside, the teaser’s hips were strongly held by a pair of hands until he was spun the opposite way. The two no longer faced each other, a small gap existing between two swaying waists. Even though he couldn’t see much in the room, Keith’s sense of touch escalated to a high sensitivity to make up for the lack of vision, tiny volts of shock striking down wherever Lance’s fingers were. Slow exhales were blown into the back of his semi-mullet, no hesitation before or after bringing the other closer to him, stomach firm against Keith’s back.

 

The denim texture was rough against his own pair, but the fact that Lance was this close and indiscriminately touching him in such a way was plenty to remind himself not to give in. Hell-bent on blowing the other’s mind away, Keith ghosted his fingers against the mocha-brown ones moving his hips to match the beat, a tiny laugh from behind making his spine tingle. Through his worn-out shoes, Keith could feel the vibrations of the loud music from the floor, helping him keep in sync with the song. Once the tempo of the song sped up in “Glass Table Girls,” he started moving against Lance in a figure-eight, hips following with ease. Whether or not the nails digging in his prickling skin was intentional, the slight flush of his cheeks became hotter from the subtle contact.

 

Before Party Keith could stray away from his alarming libido growth, the song abruptly cut short, Pidge and a blonde knocking over the expensive set with their hands in each other’s tangled, matted hair. “Shit, Gunderson is back at it again?” A random muscle head whistled after his enthusiastic comment, his gang of lackeys scavenging for their phones to record the altercation. The meticulously framed photos were off-kilter and shaking once the blonde smashed Pidge’s forehead into the plain wall. Hunk, who dashed down from the townhouse’s second floor, dropped his blunt on the bottom staircase, not taking the freshly-lit flame into consideration.

 

A large trail of crimson was marked on the wall as Pidge quickly slumped down to the floor in pain, not letting the violent blonde get away with making her nose bleed and cracking the thick-framed glasses now on the ground. The scuffed sneakers with shards of glass in them swung around the pasty-white ankles of the other fighter, bringing the unnamed attender down with a loud _thump_. Even Keith, who had a broken bone or deep cuts inflicted on him more often than he ate breakfast, felt second-hand pain from the intensity of the fall, mindlessly jumping in to break the brawlers apart. This night was the first in three weeks where the blood on his body wasn’t his, both knuckles practically grateful for him not being involved for once.

 

“Listen, intoxicated or not, it ain’t cool to break someone’s shit—“ A blow was given to his jaw, an eerily-audible _crack_ causing a chain of gasps to travel throughout the room. Drunk Keith was blown out of commission, Belligerent  Keith turning on in an instant: the subconscious smirk on his lips made his jaw pop back into place, picking the culprit up by her sheer blouse’s collar. “You better back the _fuck up_ , sweetie, before you get smacked all the way back to the suburbs.”

 

The terror in the glossy, almost-purple irises of the stranger was soon overshadowed by the fire alarm roaring throughout the house. Everyone was too invested in the fight to notice the smoke rising from the tossed blunt on the wooden stairs, not too serious of a fire – which was more like a second-long spark and pointless fog – setting of the obnoxious series of beeps that caused a frenzy to break out. Most guests bolted out without giving the non-worrisome ‘fire’ a single look, knocking over more stuff in the process of evacuating. After stabilizing his alter egos, Keith safely placed the stranger back on the ground, not paying attention to her scurrying out once his eyes landed on a panicking Lance.

 

“D-d-don’t pour alcohol on it, Robin, are you stupid?!”

“I’m Rolo, you pussy-ass pinhead,” The bottle was swiped out of his grasp by Hunk, who squished the smoldering joint to an ashy pulp. “Will someone please get that fucking incessant piece of technology out of my god damn house?!”

 

“Guys, let’s get out of here,” Pidge linked her two free arms with the frantic Lance and dazed Keith, the three of them seeking refuge from the slew of drunken threats coming from the furious white-haired stoner. This was nearly a scene taken out of a teen eighties movie, Keith thought to himself, snickering out of the blue from the sudden connection. His inebriated, hyena-like laughter fit made Pidge join, hiccups forming every few seconds between her giggles. Rolo’s place was close to the Brooklyn Bridge, his curiosity about how they could afford it was overpowered by his impulsive desire to go on the famous spot: then, it would truly be a scene from a cheesy eighties film.

 

It was something that would happen once in a lifetime, and Keith’s spontaneity wouldn’t allow him to forgive himself for not taking the opportunity to be needlessly tacky. He was ridiculously drunk, along with having been pumped full of adrenaline from the grinding, almost-fighting, and running away from the ‘fire,’ _and_ thriving off the attention he was getting from Lance’s worried-yet-interested questions about what he was doing. The late teen-years and early twenties were supposed to be the highlight of someone’s life, and even if he was not entirely aware of the concept of time he was in, that didn’t stop Keith from jogging up to the middle of the long bridge, leaning over the railing and screaming like he was mad.

 

Lance was out of breath by the time they reached the yelling drunkard, never taking his eyes off the slightly-blushing boy whose vocals were so raw during his shrills of joy. A genuine smile was making the pink cheeks grow smile lines, Keith bending backwards while releasing the rest of his shriek. “Really, what _are_ you doing?” Chuckling, Lance slouched himself on the rattling rail, facing the opposite direction of his energetic friend.

 

The other’s gaze shifted to the taller boy, seeming to be happier than he was at the party. “Releasing all my tension.”

 

“Shouldn’t the alcohol already have done that?”

 

“Nothing is better than making yourself look like a fool when you won’t remember it in the next twenty-four hours,” Keith winked, continuing his hoarse wails despite the numerous honks they got to shut him up.

 

A few helicopters were seen in the sky, almost being bright enough to mix up as a star if it wasn’t constantly flashing on and off. “Isn’t that the prettiest mechanical star show you have ever seen in your entire life?” Pidge pointed up at the same helicopters that Keith noticed, Lance rolling his eyes from the tech-friend’s inquiry. “One day, I’ll be test flying one of my own gadgets, and some stupid kids will be thinking it was a star when, in fact, it was a manmade source of light. That is my one true goal in life.”

 

“You’re such a horrible person.”

 

“Thanks, Lance, that means a lot to me. I’m so blessed.” There was a silence after the encounter, Keith letting his throat relax before he brought up how the three forgot all about the pizza Hunk ordered.

 

\--

“Fuck, I’m worn out.” Lance slid down to the floor of the unlit restaurant, leaving Pidge to lock the front door again. “I never want to go to another party…”

 

“You’ll be so excited once the Winter break ones come up.”

“Pidge, you are right, but let me suffer without thinking about the future.”

“Got it.”

 

Party Keith was no longer functioning, head planting itself into the same table he was lazing around at earlier in the day. He submitted to the exhaustion that proceeded leaving a night out, his entire body pained from the immense amount of running and dancing he did in the span of a few hours. Not much noise was heard from the outside, only a few cars passing by at this late in the night and the sidewalks virtually being unoccupied. It was a peaceful end to the day, the hands of the café’s decorative clock hitting midnight before anyone uttered a single word.

 

His conscious thoughts ranged from his psychology exam coming up to the snores of the auburn-haired acquaintance of his, to the subtle smell of Windex lingering in the restaurant, to the curve of Lance’s back when he stretched after a quick cat-nap. The mess of his mind was interrupted after about fifteen minutes of muteness, a reggaetón song suddenly turning on upstairs, causing Lance to groan from the harsh, quick-paced beats of the tune. Carisa was undeniably the suspect of the brutal wake up, Keith’s head pounding the instant he understood that he couldn’t comprehend the Spanish lyrics.

 

Both boys were rudely awakened out of their drowsiness, making a wordless decision to go upstairs and force her to turn the volume down. Keith figured he would need to get a pack of cigarettes soon if he would be roused awake by music every single night, even if he ceased the unhealthy habit years back under Shiro’s relentless nagging to quit. He’d take rotting lungs over uncontrollable anger any day, even if it would cut off years of his life. At this point, there wasn’t much left to live for anyways; he achieved his goal of getting further education that he promised his ‘siblings’ before he snuck out of the hell hole called Texas. It didn’t matter to him if the only place he had to go was the apartments and houses of the people he slept with, even if it was only a one-time thing. Nothing could be worse than breaking that promise, and if it was going back on his word or being homeless, he would sleep under a tree if that’s what it took to accomplish that promise.

 

Keith figured he didn’t need happiness, as long as he was honest to himself and those who trusted him.

 

His abrupt change of emotions made him halt on the staircase, Lance already being on the second floor once Keith paused mid-step. “Is something wrong?”

 

 _No_. “Yeah.” _Shit_.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lance’s croaky voice had the upmost sincerity behind it, the willingness to talk out Keith’s problems making the other’s heart twinge painfully. He was so used to keeping everything bottled up, and he already exploded on Lance yesterday: how would he live with himself if he kept placing his issues on others? It was an offer of charity he had accepted once, and it was as agonizing then as it was now.

 

He was a new person, yet he kept making the same mistakes that he did in the past, one of them being dependent on others. Keith didn’t want to make that error again, and here he was, drowning in his distraught feelings he stifled as a coping mechanism every time something hurt him, debating whether he should accept Lance’s proposal. Psychology major aside, he had no clue what the hell was up with him, why he was a contradictory piece of shit, or how he managed to make his life a disaster no matter what route he chose for himself.

 

 _There isn’t a path of salvation for me_ , he thought, bleary vision freezing on the hanging cross behind Lance’s head. “Maybe later, could you go ask your sister to lower it now? I’m gonna take off my shoes before I go up.” His attempt of coming off fine and naturally changing the topic was a failure, Lance biting down on his lower lip in thought amid his intense stare-down of Keith. The vulnerability he worked so hard to demolish was clawing itself back up to the surface, stomach twisting from the wave of anguish crashing down on his drained brain.

 

“Sure, I’ll go make you some tea or something and we’ll talk. Go… take your shoes off,” Lance’s terrifying glare landed on Keith’s already bare feet, not commenting on the poor attempt of avoiding the dreaded, inevitable discussion he hasn’t had in years. One way or another, it was bound to be brought up or found out by the person he didn’t want to know about the incident, and he would do his best to dodge that topic no matter what the cost was.

 

The taller friend of his was no longer in sight, a few words being heard from the staircase he was grounded on. Traumas of the past were being shoved back down to the locked cage he kept them hostage in, putting on his best ‘okay’ face that he could manage at the moment. Inside him was a sea of terrors, and he would decide when to unleash that to the world on his own accord – tonight was not the time.

 

Preparing himself for the worst, he was brave enough to make it up the stairs, sit down in one of the kitchen table’s chairs, and patiently listen to the exchange between Lance and Carisa, who was officially the person behind the rude awakening.

 

“God, she’s so unrelenting…” Lance groaned to himself, stomping over with an agitated frown. “I had to give her five bucks before she would lower it a bit. Now I’m not able to buy myself my weekly Starbucks tomorrow.”

 

“Boohoo, that’s so rough,” Keith jabbed his fist lightly into the boy’s forearm, the tense face falling back to a casual visage. “I’m feeling a bit better now, I just remembered something really embarrassing from a few years back… could still go for a cup of tea, though.” He reached the conclusion that he overthought the entire situation, easing into a lighthearted conversation about school and how lethargic they both were. It’s only been two nights together, and he was already a woeful fiasco in front of him twice, which was a new, unwanted record for him. With Shiro, it easily took five months before he broke the news about what happened in junior year, and he still didn’t tell him everything about it to this day.

 

A yawn stretched out Lance’s last few words, head lolling over after he took another sip of his sugar-filled tea. “You know, I’m so tired of everything…” His palms ran across his face, both eyes concealed from the boy watching him. Lance’s pea coat was already taken off and hanging on the seat, the goosebumps on his skin bared up to the shirt’s sleeves. “It’s so hard… sometimes I wish I wasn’t stuck in this place, it’s draining me out of all my energy most days. Maybe I’m just stressed, or maybe it’s the loneliness that follows after a break up,” A band of burn marks on his wrists were revealed once one arm fell to the table, too weak to keep his head upright. “I exist in a place of unwelcome thoughts, forced beliefs… and all I want to do once I wake up is go back to feeling empty again. Unconscious. Free of all my burdens and worries.” Another yawn transpired after the last syllable, eyelids too heavy to keep from shutting.

 

“What happens if I just disappear one day? Will I finally be happy, or officially alone in the world?”

 

Keith’s tea splashed on his thigh once the mug fell into his lap, too consumed with Lance’s worrisome, half-asleep speech to feel the heat seeping into his skin. The heart wrenching way he spoke was eloquent yet distasteful in the strangest of ways, like Lance had been so harrowed with his misery to the point where he could explain it in a handful of words. He had no clue where to start – how could he help someone who wasn’t aware they poured their heart out to another person? He wanted to help, he _needed_ to help, and there was not a single thing he could do to make Lance feel better: Keith himself was in just as bad of a place mentally.

 

“I’m just… tired…” The voice faded out into the seemingly noiseless room, bombarding Keith with an innumerable abundance of worries for the dozing boy adjacent to him. Everything was hitting him like a brick in a single night: the N-shaped series of cigarette burns on his right wrist, the perfectly-straight cross on the wall, the heartbeat thumping in his eardrums, the word ‘ _suicidal’_ being said louder and louder and louder in his brain until he thought he would explode.

 

It left a painful lump in his throat, too overwhelmed with his revelation to swallow anything in his mouth. With the reggaetón beginning to play softly again in the background, his pulse rising from concern, and the barely audible snores from the alarming boy next to him, Keith couldn’t clear his mind to think straight for a single second. Someone as beautiful and kind as Lance, who seemed to have everything that Keith yearned for, was in such a dark place in life… it didn’t fit his image. Not the person who sacrificed himself to help a suspicious stranger like him the night prior.

 

 Digging his nails into his cuticles, Keith let his mind go crazy in theories until his body shut down, the mug falling to the floor next to him. Multicolored porcelain delved into his uncovered feet, but he succumbed to the sleep deprivation he worked so hard to combat, unsure of what he was dreaming of in such a troublesome time.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT'S GOOD 
> 
> so ready to be emo again and write all summer i got one more month left and then i will no longer be a junior WOW!?!!!!! it's been such a difficult year but oh well. GLAD TO BE GETTING BACK INTO THE EMO WORKFLOW 
> 
> also, here are some playlists i made bc i never can make a book/series without at least one:   
> https://open.spotify.com/user/nytab0702/playlist/3eP71o0FhaB9MJQAO0wRcG (includes some meme ones bc why not)  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/nytab0702/playlist/3Or9tasamAdJziMkQ1JZfT  
> https://8tracks.com/dunfrappe/mind-over-matter-klance
> 
> sayonara


	3. THREE: Bottom of The Deep Blue Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smh i told myself i would release this a week after the last chapter: its a month later. my bad. it isn't even that good idek what i was thinking. 
> 
> trigger warnings: mentions of injuries/blood/nudity (kinda but not really)/anger, criminal activity (kinda funny tho)
> 
> in which crossdressing is a thing, criminal!keith's background is slightly touched upon & makes a comeback, i roast modern long island pre-teens bc i live here and i can, pining is a thing, and how does strawberries, nudity, and anger fit into all of this? stay tuned in to this disastrous fic to find out!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (bitter pining laughter) let's dive in to the angst plot now
> 
> lmao you have no clue how fun this chapter was to write when i started a MONTH AGO, and stopped for weeks. in my defense it was exam season & it took a lot to pass all of them, especially math and chemistry. smh. anyways, happy pride month even though i am hella late, this was gonna be up on the first of June but nah. your local ace had too much on her plate ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Something was bothering Keith, even during his REM sleep – the first he’s had in a while. An indescribable pain was surging throughout his body, the asleep boy unsure of where it was even coming from. Throughout the abstract black-and-white dream he was having, the constant agony was slowly waking him up, Keith’s conscience getting turned on once the dream’s image faded out to pitch black.

 

A series of incomprehensible moans and obscenities were flowing out of the tired throat of his, vision blurry from not getting enough sleep: something he has gotten used to, yet it stilled annoyed him to no end. “These fucking eye boogers…” He meant to say, but the words came out as if he had a smoker’s vocal cords, sounding more and more like gibberish with each syllable. That pain was unrelenting, but now he could somewhat see the perpetrator throughout his crusted-over eyelids. The periodic table mug was broken apart, jeans still soaked from the tea he spilled earlier, and elements from Hydrogen to Radium were jabbing into his inflamed, bleeding feet.

 

“Fuck my life.”

 

\--

 

Paraíso was booming with college students as soon as the delicatessen opened for the day, stacks of books, laptops, and blankets flooding into the shop as they prepared for the week’s upcoming midterms. Keith was also one of these people, but instead of sitting in the customers’ area, he was behind the counter, focusing on Lance’s ridiculously good makeup covering the N-shaped burns on his wrist instead of the Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic unit in his textbook. The worrisome and unconscious revelation in Lance’s speech hours back seemed to linger in his mind more than the terms he should be remembering for his midterm in a day, the rest of his thoughts relating back to the ice pack he managed to fit in Lance’s huge slippers to ease the throbbing pain in his foot.

 

Each time the deli slicer was pushed down, he flinched, thinking about how Lance could injure himself even worse than he possibly did in the past. His impulsive and curious nature already made him believe that Lance has committed some grave act on himself at least once, even if the boy himself never mentioned it: not once.

 

“So, are you gonna keep staring, or are you doing some psych evaluation on me to practice for your exam?” Lance pointed the sharp knife in Keith’s direction, making the staring boy jolt up from his slumping position. “Cram. Now. Or else, you’ll be the meat in these people’s sandwiches. I’m pretty sure some of these dead-eyed sickos wouldn’t mind being a cannibal if it gave them enough energy to study.”

 

“Sounds like a fair deal… if I die, then I won’t have to take this dreadful midterm. Hell, it’d probably be a far less gruesome death via steak knife than failing the test.” Keith blurted out monotonously, instantly regretting his dark humor when he remembered how Lance was suicidal – at least, Keith was convinced he was from that suspicious conversation at _12:23 am sharp on a Sunday morning_. “I-I didn’t mean that, you know? Death isn’t cool to joke about…. Y’know? It’s a serious manner.”

 

Lance squinted at him, deli slicer dangerously close to the turkey breast his free hand steadied. It was clearly an awkward exchange, the usually bubbly boy leaving the mess of a human named Keith to fret over his careless mistake. “Dude, you’re fine. I’m pretty sure we all joke about dying nowadays. Pidge once Googled how she could pass out in a final exam so that nobody, including herself, would have to take it. Didn’t work out too well.”

 

“I… I see.”

 

“As Avril Lavigne would say, ‘why do you have to go and make things so complicated?’ Don’t worry.”

 

Clearly, if the kid was in good enough spirits to joke and reference a cheesy song ironically at one in the afternoon, he was not aware of how he revealed his fragile, broken soul to the brunt of the gag. “Okay, I’m going back to studying, please don’t quote _High School Musical_ or anything else meme-related.” Keith lied right through his teeth, resuming his creeping on the sweating worker adjacent to him. Even if it seemed that Lance had a nice life, something has been off within the family the second he met them all, a confusing tension rooting all of them in a problem larger than he could fathom. Maybe it was even the reason for the perfectly burned N on his wrists, or why Lance admitted he wanted to disappear. It was an enigma to the boy who silently observed his friend like a test object, scrutinizing each move he made and determining how it somehow related back to the depression Keith believed he possessed.

 

He was overthinking the entire thing with an unfair basis for his claim, but his inquisitive nature wouldn’t allow him to stop making connections and theorizing about Lance’s life.

 

Twirling the mechanical pencil in the spaces between his index and ring finger, a habit he picked up once his drumsticks were lost, he tried his best to concentrate on the textbook planted in his lap, some of the pages torn and highlighted from previous owners. He thought that the actions were practically vandalizing the book, but he was too broke to buy a new one online – he didn’t even pay for this one, he stole it from the library when he threatened a clerk that he’d tell the boss that she was smoking inside the place. The sudden realization that he was running low on cash scared him out of his seat, shoving the book underneath his arm in the process.

 

Lance threw him a confused look, but Keith already vanished into thin air before his gaze could follow him out the door, a random jacket being stolen from a customer in the scurry. Carisa bumped into the culprit outside, nearly being knocked down from the runner’s impact. Her older brother could see the curses flinging out of her mouth without even needing to hear it.

 

“-ck, how could he just fuck off on his own way without apologizing? I’m offended, he’s rude.” She was mid-complaint as she entered the café, still agitated at Keith’s behavior.

 

“And with that mouth of yours, you aren’t?” Lance wiped his hands on the gradually-dirtying hand towel, Carisa’s lips parting until she was gaping in shock. “Get back here and cut the rest of the meat, we’re jam packed and I need to get the rest of the coffee orders done.”

 

The immense amount of respect she has for her older brother was enough to make her succumb to the brutal work behind the counter, digging out a Band-Aid just in case she cut her thumb again from the slicer. “Are you sure it’s safe, having him living with us? I mean, he’s not really mean or anything, but something seems to be peculiar about him. You know?”

 

“It’s fine to feel that way, but I’m not going to presume anything just because he happened to hurt himself the second we met, or the fact that he just stormed out of here with my Darth Vader slippers without a care in the world. He fits in with the other good people we know – and as a future lawyer, what’s the motto you’re supposed to live by… ‘Innocent until proven guilty?’” The corners of his lips curled once he saw her sigh in agreement in the corner of his eye, going back to the orders he had to complete for the impatient thirsty zombies in front of him.

 

\--

 

The soles of Lance’s shitty slippers were scratching against the mall’s freshly cleaned tiles, Keith spending the spare cash he had to catch a train ride to Smithtown after hearing about the sale Victoria’s Secret was having from the college girls passing by him on the street. He was lucky he grabbed a long fancy coat from one of the students in Paraíso, since it made him look a bit more like a girl when he buttoned it up and messily placed his hair in a ballerina-esque bun. Keith was in dire need for money, and he would rather be in prison than steal from the family who let him stay at their house the past two days and nights.

 

So here he was, decked out in whatever makeup he could apply with the sparse amount of ‘try me’ ones available in Sephora. He credited his old art teacher for teaching him how to draw a straight line in this time, his eyeliner looking more eloquent than most of the other Long Island pre-teens in the mall. It gave him an unnecessary confidence boost when they complimented his makeup, even if his crossdressing was a scheme to make money without being judged.

 

Victoria’s Secret was full of women, some making a mess of the underwear drawers due to the “7 for $28” bargain sign taped on the glass showcase. The pile of thongs was the first section he tackled, stuffing around twenty-seven pairs of each size and pattern in the baggy coat of his, Keith being lucky enough that it had sewn pockets on the inside that could probably hold an entire galaxy in them. After stealing the undergarments that others had already made a mess of, he continued thieving other overpriced items the store had in stock, a few bras being swiped off the stands they were showcased on.

 

Today was high-risk, yet he pulled off stuffing tons of clothes and garments into the jacket. However, the next step was getting everything put away safely, and he figured there wouldn’t be no better place to do that than in the safety of a dressing room. The agitated, non-attentive worker gave him the pass without even looking, allowing him to take whatever room he wanted in there. All the dressing room staff thought that he was trying them on; in reality, however, he was just putting one bra on after another, along with shoving everything else in any vacant space the coat had, refusing to look in the mirror and accepting his desperate behavior. He hasn’t been in a burglary as reckless as this one since he robbed a fancy art store when he was younger and less wise.

 

A different lady was swapping out with the other one he encountered before, making it the optimal time to leave the store as quick as he could. Whatever was left in the dressing room was shoved into the Darth Vader slippers no one dared to question him about, discarding the ice pack – which was actually a bag of frozen peas – in the stall next door, and he made his way out of the store. His swollen foot was not his primary concern at the time, no matter how much it stung whenever he moved it.

 

The tags were quickly torn off back in that horrendously pink room, but he didn’t realize that one of the pairs of bras he had on still had the label on it until the alarm was set off, all the frenzied shoppers and staff turning their attention to the suspect: Keith.

 

“Oh, fuck me.” Keith turned the opposite way, bolting down as a few pairs of underwear fell out of the shoes he borrowed from Lance. He didn’t want to look back at the gang of people following him, which soon sounded like security guards who called for backup on their walkie-talkies. “Screw this,” He slid his feet out of the slippers, holding them dear in his chest that seemed to be a 38 DD due to the seven bras he managed to fit in before they wouldn’t fit anymore.

 

His once-secured bun was beginning to come loose, mullet falling back down to an almost-undone ponytail by the time he made it out of the store. A Verizon shop was right in front of the exit he took, Keith beelining straight for it and disregarding the pain in his injured foot that grew worse with each piece of gravel embedding themselves into the cracked balls of his feet. One way or another, he was going to work hard to not get caught, even if that meant undressing in a ladies’ room and scrubbing off the lip stain he mindlessly applied in the span of fifteen seconds. At this point, he didn’t seem to resemble the crossdressing appearance he had before, tying the jacket around his waist to reveal the worn-out, manly Tigers Jaw he wore over the seven push-up bras digging into his back.

 

The false boobs of his made him uncomfortable, but it would have to deal: he was on the run from a massive group of security guards and pissed-off Victoria’s Secret workers, he didn’t have the time to be fussy about his appearance.

 

Peeking his head out of the bathroom’s door, he didn’t see anyone in the shop that oozed anger, safely walking out and scraping the gravel out of his feet before slipping back into shoes that weren’t his.

 

What time he would get back to Brooklyn by, he had no clue, but he would figure a way out of this mess quicker. There were plenty of people who would need bras anyways, so he went straight into Long Island’s most notorious areas for druggies in high hopes of making enough bank for the rest of the month. Not like it was the first time he’s done it, and in his opinion, he was way more dangerous of a criminal than the heroin users that had loads to spend.

 

\--

 

The oldest three siblings still living in the McClain house were fervently wiping down the countertops, the neon lights of the café having been turned off. It was easily eight o’clock, the sun setting behind the large buildings adjacent to them. Idle noise was making the barely-lit delicatessen feel less lonely, Lance, Carisa, and Constantine working in complete silence. While they were physically quiet, their minds were not, one of the sibling’s worries particularly rampant in their conscious thoughts.

 

Keith was gone for almost eight hours, and Lance was beginning to panic. Wherever he was, or whatever he was doing, was no longer important to Lance at this point – he just wanted his friend to return already. School was only half a day away for them both, and only one was at home, the other vanished in a matter of seconds and stayed gone for what felt like decades.

 

“Lance, you’re going to watch some horror movies with us?”

 

Constantine tossed the wet dishrag onto his shoulder, staring at his older brother pouting. “I’m gonna get in the shower once I’m done, but you two can go up and watch them without me. Thanks for the offer, though,” He bid a heartwarming smile, the younger brother nodding before leaving him stranded in the restaurant. Carisa followed a few seconds afterwards, sputtering out numerous different films to watch in one night.

 

His two eyes were firmly planted on the horizon that formed over the buildings’ roofs, oranges and pinks melting together in the sky. Even though he preferred the blue skies of daylight, he would be lying if he didn’t adore how the sun rises and sets. When it got dark, he no longer enjoyed the scenery above him, slumping down in his seat anxiously. By the time a few stars were shining in the vast borough, he dug out his phone, remembering how he never even got Keith’s number – nevertheless, he brushed away his panic, scrolling down on all his social media instead.

 

Lance was commenting on Pidge’s selfie of her bruised face when a series of bangs scared him out of his pastime, literally jumping out of his seat from the sudden clamor. A dark figure was by the door, and the closer Lance got to the suspicious person, he grew more aware that it was Keith. “Keith, what the fuck?”

 

“Lance, just-just open the door, please!” Distress clouded over the hoarse tone in his voice, Lance unlocking the entrance and letting Keith barrel into it panickily. The breaths he took were making a strange rattling sound, Lance relocking the door and turning to him in confusion. “Thanks… you saved me, literally….” A cough ruptured out of his throat, a trembling fist reaching up to cover his mouth.

 

“What happened? You’re shaking-”

 

“I’m fine,” Keith’s cold timbre was enough to make Lance frown, the panting boy walking over to the sink and washing his face.

 

“You’re mistaken if you think I’m not going to pester you about this, so you might as well tell me now. I have the patience of Hachikō.” Lance subtly threatened the other, strolling over without making any sounds. Various disgusting smells wafted into his nostrils as he approached Keith, pinching his nose to avoid puking. “Jesus, you reek… what the hell were you doing to smell like a crackhouse?”

 

Keith’s eyes gazed at him, having a glossy, rhinestone-look in the lightless room. A tiny fissure extended down from his earlobe, the dirt caked onto his face leading to the patches of grass and weeds tangled in his messy bun. Emotions were his strong point, but even Lance couldn’t decipher whether it was fear or antipathy making the boy’s irises glint ever so slightly. Water was gushing down the drain, the two frozen in their spots: one making mental connections, the other thinking of excuses to avoid the conversation. Lance could no longer stare into the pair of eyes in front of him, every ounce of his focus trailing down Keith’s body and freezing at his bust that wasn’t there the last time they saw each other.

 

“Boobs?”

 

A squeal piped out of the suspicious boy, arms covering the chest that he fabricated earlier in the day. “I don’t know what you are talking about, everyone has boobs.” Lance poked the odd bust, the number of bras Keith was wearing not allowing his finger to remotely reach his body – just layers of fabric.

 

Relieved, Lance sighed, grinning sincerely at the wide-eyed friend of his. “Why didn’t you tell me you liked to cross-dress? It’s totally fine, and I’m pretty sure most of us have enjoyed watching _RuPaul's Drag Race_ at least once.” He lightly hit Keith’s shoulder, airy chuckles filling the tense, empty room.

 

“I wasn’t crossdressing!” Keith huffed, slamming the faucet down to stop the water from cascading down. The expression Lance wore was clearly one of questioning, Keith frustratingly picking out the plants that embedded themselves into his hair. “I was in-“ Two hands slapped his cheeks, the annoyance surging out of him instantly: the brown hands that cupped his slightly-stinging face was gentle to the touch, thumbs brushing off the crusted-over dirt by his eyebrows.

 

Guilt was gnawing at his insides from the adorable, authentic smile on his friend’s lips. “Forget it, it’s not important right now. We have classes tomorrow, you smell worse than Samuel after eating jambalaya, and I’ll be damned if I don’t sanitize your wounds _again_. All that matters is that you’re safe, you know?” His palms were suddenly freezing against Keith’s cheeks, heat rivaling the Arizonian deserts in late-July. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

 

\--

 

A brand-new man, Keith wrapped the towel around his waist and left the bathroom, steam swirling out of the door as soon as it was opened. He used Carisa’s shampoo once again, shamelessly loving the sweet smell of it. It made him feel more fresh than usual – however, that could also be credited to the point that he’s washed his hair more the past weekend than he did last week. Fuzzy-sounding screams came out of nowhere, Keith almost forgetting how Constantine and Carisa were marathoning scary movies all night. Halloween had already passed, but he wouldn’t let that ruin their fun: he wasn’t totally heartless. Plus, it was his favorite holiday, too, and the only one he truly enjoyed as a kid. There was no point to Christmas when he wasn’t religious, nor had no family.

 

Keith absentmindedly picked at the Band-Aid behind his earlobe, looking around for something to eat. Lance was an expert at hiding stuff, and he figured that package of ramen he bought ended up in a new solar system by now. Instead of the cheap noodles, he looked through the fridge, which was the only source of light in the area connecting the kitchen to the living room. To anyone else, he would undeniably appear to be suspicious, squatting on the ground in nothing but a towel loosely wrapped around his waist. He figured if Samuel was sleeping over someone else’s house, and Luna was dozing off in her parents’ bed, he would be fine being sort-of in the nude.

 

The carton of strawberries was taken out for a late-night snack, but before he could stand back up, someone left their bedroom: as a man at high risk of flashing someone, he plopped himself flat onto the ground, closing the refrigerator door quicker than the speed of light.  Lance was on the phone with someone, and all Keith could make out was the way one of his hands glided down from his forehead, sitting himself down on the loveseat.

 

“Listen, I don’t care about the reasoning behind it…. Oh _, really now_? You’re going to play the victim card? I’ve really seen it all…. Yeah, apologizing won’t change anything about the way you fucked me over…. I swear, if you come here now, I won’t hesitate on kicking your ass out the door. Do I really need to file for a restraining order against you? Crazy bitch- oh, so _I’m_ the crazy one? _Fuck you_.” Lance tapped his phone furiously, throwing it at the wall once the screen blackened. Keith witnessed the whole debacle, not sure on whether he should come out of hiding or not. He felt he heard something that wasn’t meant for an outsider’s ears, but there was nothing to shroud over the image of a pissed Lance.

 

Obscenities, in both English and Spanish, were being slung around as the tanned boy paced around the living room, forgetting all about the phone he threw moments prior. His temper was something Keith never thought about, but it only made sense: there was something off about his new friend, and maybe it was something about his temper rather than being suicidal. Or maybe it was the person on the other side of the heated phone call – either way, he was prying into something that shouldn’t be tempered with, yet he couldn’t stop himself from webbing his way further down into the mess.

 

“Lance?” His voice came out unintentionally weak, loud enough just to make Lance jolt from the unexpected sound. Keith shyly popped up from the floor, gripping onto his towel tightly. “Is everything alright? I… kind of heard a good portion of that call. You know, just these strawberries and me…” He held up the carton to cover his reason for being in the kitchen.

 

A peculiar sound came from the other before he cackled madly, falling back onto the couch from surprise. “It’s fine, just a small fight with my ex.” He fiddled around for the remote, turning it on to reveal a news channel. “Wanna watch something?”

 

“I’m kind of… not dressed?”

 

“Do I care? Get over here and take the blanket, I’m bored and need to relax.”

 

Lance patted the cushion next to him, beckoning Keith to join him as he surfed through the channels. Incapable of denying his friend’s earnest request, Keith plodded over to the loveseat and wrapped the blanket around his frame. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was inside of his stomach, but it made him contradict the uncomfortable fact that he was practically naked next to Lance. In fact, a brief thought passed about how he wanted to get closer, but his conscience immediately threw that possibility out. Keith was not going to ruin another good thing because of how attractive Lance was – plus, he didn’t like him that kind of way personally.

 

Despite that, his heart was smashed into fragments once he saw the tears falling down his friend’s cheek, a small sniffle almost inaudible. His head swung back to see Lance, both eyes bloodshot and glistening with water. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to start crying. How embarrassing…” Lance faked a laugh, wiping the tears away with his sleeve.

 

“It’s not embarrassing, cry all you want. Why is it wrong?” Keith wrapped the blanket around Lance instead, whose bleary eyes stared back at him. “Do you want to talk about it? I mean, I’m not a psychology major for nothing, and I have no reason to judge you.”

 

A small giggle came from the boy who had a blanket burrito-wrapped around himself, leaning his head on the bare shoulder next to him. They were quiet for a few moments, not interrupting the other’s thoughts before they got to say them. “I’m questioning everything at this point. Like, why I’m the way I am, or the meaning of why we are here… even though I’m Catholic, it just feels like something is missing. I don’t know, I’m not making any sense, but my life is just depleted of any miracles or hope right now. Like, what kind of God would let a believer’s girlfriend burn their initial into their boyfriend’s skin, anyways? It’s fucked, and yet I can’t come to terms with just dropping my faith in such a God. Keith, please help a homie.”

 

“Did you really have to say homie after pouring your heart out to me again?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“… Would you mind if I saw the burn?”

 

Apprehensive at first, Lance slipped out his arm from the comfort of the blanket, the makeup completely washed away and baring the inflicted burns. Keith’s fingers ghosted over the small mark, not paying attention to the way Lance flinched from the contact. He traced an O next to the scar, smiling softly while doing so. “Learn how to say no, Lance. It’s a two-letter word that holds a ton of power when used, and you have the freedom to say whatever you want. Don’t let any scars, physical or emotional, hold you back from doing what you want to do. And your ex-girlfriend? She can fight me, I’m already mad at her without knowing her name.” The trembling, slender fingers were entwined with five paler, rougher ones, both oblivious to how that happened. “And about your religion, I think it’s fine to be curious about the way the world works beyond your faith. You’re entitled to question it – hell, Catholicism has been problematic in the past, so it makes sense. Don’t let it bring you down, and trust me, living is definitely something worthwhile.”

 

Lance’s hold on Keith’s hand tightened a bit, snuggling his nose further into the neck akin to the shoulder he rested on. “I hope so. Aside from existentialism, it’s just, it’s difficult to accept everything in the Bible. And don’t get me started on what others preach. Everything I find okay seems to be condemned by others that practice Catholicism or Christianity, like sexuality and gender being a fluid thing or polyamory and sex before marriage. And the fact that I'm bi isn’t making me feel this way, I'm just so lost and can't find any reason to believe in God right now when I can't stop having catastrophes happen every other minute…. Okay, I think I’m done talking and being emo,” He yawned, eyelashes tickling Keith’s skin. “Thank you for listening, it feels so good to get that off my chest.”

 

Warmth was radiating into him from where Lance’s head was dozing off, mouth slightly agape from how much was unloaded onto him. He never met someone who was so comfortable with spilling their life story in a few days, and it was refreshing, sure. But the cross hanging in front of them was more eerie than ever, knowing that Lance was bisexual and masking its ugly side from making an appearance. Did Lance know how cruel some people could be? Did he come out to others, or was it just Keith? How long was he dealing with holding all that in?

 

“Hey, what happened to your boobs?” Lance poked Keith’s now-flat chest, the touch tickling even more as the blanket brushed against his skin. Chills rippled down his frame, warmness seeping through each pore he had. “I want to see you cross-dress again…” A slightly disappointed tone carried out the sentence.

 

Keith completely forgot to sell them – well, it was more like he didn’t have the time to before he got into a fight. “Um, I have to clean them, you know. After falling in the ground, it’s gross.” His shrug made Lance shift, cheeks accidentally rubbing together. “W-what are you doing?!” Perplexed, Keith’s gaze deviated to the ceiling, too shy to look Lance in the face: which happened to lay itself on top of his bare legs, blanket keeping his head safe from getting wet.

 

Gentle laughter made his thighs vibrate, tides of electric currents passing through his nerves and composing a melodic, soothing tune replaying in his mind. Spawns of hurricanes rampaged in his nervous stomach, overwhelming the discombobulated boy. Something clicked inside, gears turning faster and faster, unrusting from its long time of being shut down. Time seemed to delay, Keith becoming hyperaware of every movement that ensued after each giggle; the crinkles forming and deepening with each new laugh, the dimples indenting and fading interchangeably, the marginally-lopsided way his nose tilts.

 

“It’s nice being like this. You’re the first person I’m comfortable talking to about this. Wear that like a badge of pride, or was it badge of honor?” Lance’s lips curled into an enigmatic smile, unknowingly letting Keith leer at him. “Hopefully we can stay like this, I don’t want to change anything. Let me sleep on your legs forever and I can safely say I’d be a happy man.”

 

All his eloquent words were overshadowed by a single repeated one, increasing in volume despite never being uttered. Keith was no longer aware of whether he was speaking or not, troubled by his thoughts for the first time in years. Four subsequent letters continuously shrieked in his cranium, allowing doom to dawn upon him.

 

Pivoting himself, Lance bored into the motionless friend of his, unsettled by the sudden silence and stiffness. “You okay?”

 

He was too deep in the realization that he had feelings he wasn’t supposed to have, distraught over how he was going to deal with this: how he would deal about Lance and his relationship. There were areas he could fix, but the simple subject was enough to knock all the oxygen out of his lungs from nerves. This was not allowed to happen, and he avoided it for so long, suppressing it and masking the matter simply as fondness. _Shit, **shit,**_ **Shit**. “Shit.”

~~Shit.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should i continue with more criminal!keith scenes? considering i always find a way to involve crime into my stories? 
> 
> also, your emo is super glad that her birthday is in a few days and that it's summer vacation. it's my last one before college and ZOO WEE MAMA senior year is gonna be crazy. nobody's reading this anyways so
> 
> see you in four decades with a new chapter! xxx


	4. FOUR + FIVE: Red Flag/ Millstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so before anything, yes ik this took a long time, but its done and about 9.9k long, so please don't yell at me i wrote two full chapters! and this was gonna be posted on Lance's birthday... didn't turn out too well because i took a turn for the dramatics and procrastinated by making multiple playlists. however, i did make 2 new ones for this fic, so i'll link those in the ending note. don't know when the next chapter will come out, but prob in the next month while all my squad will be in school and i will not be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: underage drinking, unneeded drama, and excessive cursing. the usual ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> in which a seemingly harmless chapter turns fuckin eMo bc i am, with sprinkles of dry humor i thought of after 4 cups of coffee. cant really describe it much more than that

Igniting, extinguishing: repeat, repeat, _repeat_.

 

The lighter in Keith’s hand flicked with fire for seconds before being blown away, the heavy gusts of wind on the balcony too strong in the early morning. With each kindle of fire, the memories from hours past wash over him, more powerful than any downpour he ever experienced. All the emotions that exploded before him were now caged up, and to be forgotten about, hopefully for long enough that the feeling diminishes completely. _Ignite_.

 

There was nothing that would happen to them, nothing blossoming and nothing wilting. He would retain a strictly-friendly relationship with Lance, even if that meant deceiving his true feelings for him, even if that meant leaving himself to be yearning until he could distance himself from the flame of affection lighting in his heart. _Extinguish_.

 

Ambient sounds of the nightlife in Brooklyn were dimming out to nothingness as the sun rose, the stillness of the quiet being a source of comfort for Keith. After the conversation and epiphany from the previous night, he found himself lost in what was happening around him as he isolated himself from the manners of his mind and soul. The matter he was faced with was inevitably one of massive weight to it, and had two sides to itself with unfavorable outcomes: unlike any penny he possessed, he could only see the probability of one side happening in his unfair reality. And instead of dealing with it, he would seal it away for safekeeping, and focus on other smaller issues he found himself deluged in. _Ignite_.

 

Miles worth of the skyline could be seen from where he was loitering, yellows and oranges painting the horizon under the Brooklyn bridge while the upper half was still drowning in a gradient of blacks and blues. The sight was captivating from the McClain’s balcony, something he could never watch back in the shed he squatted in when there was nowhere else he could be. Rather than the calm that came with the sun rising, loneliness bubbled inside of Keith, even if he denied that it consequently stemmed off from the way he behaved. Ache was something that resided inside and outside his limits: he could quarantine off any emotions, but he could not sever the pain signals in his nerves from his inflamed foot.

 

 _Extinguish_.

 

An itch to smoke was pounding inside his mind, fingernails scratching on the lighter to hold himself back. The habit must be broken if he wanted to become a better person, and free from any dependency – but the cigarette pack he swiped off a smoker in Smithtown was calling his conscience, leaving beckoning voicemails of ‘you need me’ in his thoughts, looping constantly without missing a beat. And then in the midst of his withdrawal of nicotine and the pathetic way he convinced himself to not think of Lance, Lance came into his thoughts without warning, along with the cigarette burns he acquired on his wrist.

 

“I should quit,” He whispered to nobody, snapping the lid on his lighter shut and letting it out of his grasp. Keith watched it descend from stories high, landing somewhere he could not see from the balcony. After letting out a rattled sigh, he pivoted away from the edge, eyes catching a figure in the unlit apartment: no doors were heard opening, and Keith was certain that he was not dazed out enough to not hear the creaks of them.

 

A light flicked on in the bathroom in the time it took him to turn around, Keith squinting in suspicion and heading inside. The front entrance was opened slightly, still not fully closed – this was enough proof that there was an intruder to the ever-doubtful boy, who kicked the door shut and grabbed the nearest object to him to act as a weapon: a broom. Two swallows later, he tiptoed his way over to the invaded bathroom, steam already drifting out from under the lopsided entryway. Broom to his left, a fist on his right, Keith nudged the unclosed door further open, being bombarded with a humid heat and smoke-like steam from the shower. The lyrics to “Bootylicious” were being belted out, loud enough to be barely heard over the water gushing down.

 

“Is my vibe too vibealacious for you, babe? I shake my jelly at every chance, when I whip with my hips you slip into a trance, I'm hoping you can handle all this jelly that I have, now let's cut a rug while we scat some jazz…” A confused Keith rubbed his bleary eyes, listening to the harmonic humming of whoever was in the shower. The curtains were masking the stranger from his vision, which he could take as both a blessing and a curse. With the start of the next verse, the person began to turn around, snapping their fingers in the process. “I don't think you ready for this jelly- _holy shit_!” They slipped in the shower, mindlessly gripping onto the curtains for help: both went down in a gnarly slide.

 

Keith propped the broom up on the wall, and rushed over to the injured person’s side, holding out a hand for them to hold. “Are you okay?”

 

“Keith?! Are you perving on me or something?” A pop of shampooed brown hair came up, followed by a cocky smirk by the lips he fawned over hours ago. His hand fell to his side immediately after Lance balanced himself, wrapping the curtain around his body and turning off the water. “I wasn’t expecting this, being creeped on by my own friend… I’m both flattered and flustered.”

 

The truly flustered one held his palm to his eyes, cheeks flushing from both the _steam_ and the _steamy_ friend in front of him. “I-I wasn’t creeping! I thought someone broke in, a-and, well, um…” His train of thought ceased to exist, only focusing on slowing his heartbeat back to a healthy rate. “Can I look now?”

 

“Why, does a little skin make you uncomfortable?”

 

“ _Lance_!”

 

A dually impish and adorable giggle came from the almost-nude friend of his, who gently moved Keith’s hand-shield away from his eyes. The steam swirled around the room, Lance’s figure a little blurry from it – nevertheless, his collarbones were prominent in the fog, and Keith’s mind was way too fixated on that revelation to take note of how they were getting closer by the second.

 

“Sorry if I made you panic, Keith.” A meek smile emerged on his now-dark pink lips, still holding onto the other’s wrists carefully. “I couldn’t get to sleep after our talk, so I finished the rest of my group project, and then cleaned up downstairs. I really do feel bad for frightening you.”

 

A switch triggered in his mind, Keith wiggling his wrists free from Lance’s touch. “Group project? What do you mean you finished the rest of it?” The grin on his _friend’s_ face became more of a façade after his question, Keith’s eyebrows knitting together in annoyance. “Please tell me that you didn’t do it all on your own.”

 

Silence flew into the room as quick as the steam left, the two avoiding eye contact with each other. “It wasn’t that big of a deal, and they are mostly upperclassmen anyways! Foreign language is an easy class for me, and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I’m fine. Really.” Lance held onto the towel adorned on his waist, shifting uncomfortably in the humid bathroom. The tension grew more once his traveling gaze landed on the swollen foot of Keith’s, the infection as clear as the clavicles Keith’s mind was infatuated with. “What the fuck, Keith? What happened to your foot!?”

 

A dazed Keith stared at Lance’s collarbone with confusion until he snapped back to reality, his field of vision diving down to see the enlarged and discolored foot of his: this was too much to comprehend in the morning after not sleeping. “Oh, right.” He said flatly, followed by unclear mumbles from the other party. “I-I should, you know, go… disinfect it.”

 

“You think?!” Lance swiped the hand towel off the counter, rolling it up ominously without blinking. “You have two seconds to get out and disinfect that ugly ass foot of yours!”

 

Keith yelped when Lance whipped the towel at him, missing by only a fraction of an inch. He hurried out of the bathroom with a flood of fear, washing out any awe about Lance’s toned and equally-tanned body. The bottle of peroxide slid out the bathroom door before Lance closed it, resuming his theatrical singing. A fond simper found its way onto his mouth, picking up the jug of hellish antiseptic from the floor without a single thought about how painful it would be.

 

And boy, _was_ it painful.

 

Hours elapsed since the peroxide first stung his poor foot, and here he was, nearing the end of his Psychology class, anxiously bouncing his unaffected leg to keep his mind off the aching one. Other kids were becoming irritated as the minutes went by, but nobody dared to say anything while Professor Alfor was teaching. Half his conscience absorbed socioeconomic factors on a person’s wellbeing, the other immersed in avoiding how much his foot throbbed underneath the loosely-tied sneaker. As much as he loves learning about the psychological distress that comes from systemic prejudices, Keith was unable to put forth all his attention this time.

 

And the 5 cups worth of caffeine he consumed today was not helping him calm down, not one bit. He was having a buzz crash at the same time the pain resurfaced, and it was as if hell dawned down on him before death had the chance to. Hassle after hassle kept arriving, figurative and literal headaches developing. And for all the cash he paid to enroll into Pratt, he stubbornly refused to miss a class – it would cost him more than just his life savings to skip, it would cost him his future, too. So, Keith endured the pain and inconveniences he had, taking notes with his left hand and holding his quaking leg still, all in hopes that his effort would be worth it years into the future.

 

Two pages of notes in his worn-down journal were filled before the lecture ended, Keith’s fellow classmates scurrying out of there as quick as possible. He figured he would take it slow – for both his foot’s sake and his sanity, since the hallways would be full of traffic from slow walkers. He had plenty of time before his next class, and he wasn’t quite sure he could handle all the noise outside the classroom when his mind was nothing but noise.

 

Professor Alfor’s tapping made him come to his senses, the room key swinging around his index finger. “I’m sorry, but I have an appointment I must go to. Would you mind?” Keith shook his head violently, stumbling out of his seat and shoving his materials into the frayed, semi-broken bookbag of his. The bag, along with his journal, have been with him since his middle school years, before he left the orphanage and around the time his rebellious streak was born. Nevertheless, his teacher was pleased at how quick he exited the room, hobbling down the fairly-empty halls into the main campus.

 

The art students had their canvases out, some sketching and some painting the scenery for their classwork. Some people appeared familiar to him, Keith recalling the disaster of a party he went to days ago. He felt the urge to smoke once the fighting memory flashed before his eyes, slowing his pace down and placing himself down on a creaky bench. Graphite dusted his calloused hands and fingertips, the grey powder leaving streaks along his cigarette pack and the cigarette itself. The cancer stick whirled around between his fingers, Keith’s free hand blindly searching for his lighter he foolishly tossed away earlier.

 

A sequence of curses after, he found himself pickpocketing a lighter out of a bypasser’s back pocket, not feeling sorry after the stranger spat out a hateful complaint about the Women’s Studies students to his disinterested girlfriend. “Asshole,” he grumbled against his cigarette, blowing out puffs of smoked tobacco into the polluted air. Nicotine blackened his lungs over his adolescence, and he found himself hating the habit rather than relying on it these days. Keith at fifteen would have loaded his airways with it more often than oxygen, and Keith at twelve would have hacked and wheezed each time he took a drag of his old friends’ cigarettes. But Keith at nineteen was torn between his dependency and his disgust for it, the habit becoming more of a flawed routine than a stressed-out whim. No matter how many lies he told to Shiro about him quitting years ago, he still desperately continued to smoke his way through life.

 

Rocking back and forth on the bench, Keith anxiously began flicking his cigarette, ashes falling to the dead grass and leaves. Since he was younger, autumn has always been his favorite season – _definitely_ because Halloween was during it, and at nineteen, he was still pumped up for the holiday. It was the one of the few times he could partake in a celebration without having a specific faith, and that childish joy lasted longer than anything ever has in his entire life.

 

“Quit my ass…” He scoffed to himself, blowing rings of smoke and thinking about what to dress up as this year. October was close to ending, and he still hasn’t chosen a specific costume or party to go to for the night. Even though he has the innocent excitement for Halloween, the nightlife was a different story, and one he has frivolous half-memories of dating back to ninth grade. The question was: what could he dress as with an infected, inflamed foot? Where would he be for the night? _What would Lance be doing_? “ _Lance_?”

 

His mind instantly started roaming about the boy who appeared in front of him, watching him interact with Pidge and Hunk enthusiastically – while he observed like a creeper. The boy’s hands gesticulated wildly with each syllable, clearly engrossed in whatever he was sputtering to his interested and equally-humored companions. Flower petals bloomed all around him like a shoujo manga, Keith enamored with how nice his _friend_ looked amongst the others. If Lance was a shoujo boy strolling in slow-motion, the rest were generic characters with no face, passing by without any impression. _Shit_ endlessly boomed in his thoughts, heat rising to his face and his heartbeat betraying the soothing effect nicotine was supposed to have. Red flags warned him to not indulge in any of the worryingly suggestive thoughts and images of his, as he crushed his cigarette under his dirtied sneakers in lieu of avoiding the manner. _Fuck, how could someone look pretty after running into a branch_? Keith had no clue _how_ he managed to do it nor _why_ he found it pretty in the first place.

 

When Lance’s ~~gorgeous~~ eyes trailed over to where Keith was, he immediately pretended to be immersed in rummaging through his bookbag, digging out the old notebook of his and landing on one of his _diary entry pages_ from seventh grade. It was a recipe for disaster once he took the risk to gaze up and saw the trio heading over: fuck, fuck, fuck. The slight bounce in his _friend’s_ step made his heart feel like it was getting mauled repeatedly by Cupid’s arrow, imprudently considering that said _friend_ was happy to see him. _Friends_ don’t act like that – right?

 

“Keith!” The bubbly voice echoed, sending chills down the other’s spine. Right, _friends_ don’t act like this, having mini heart attacks over hearing them say their name. Butterflies don’t swarm and intermingle with heat in a _friend’s_ stomach. “I guess we finally ended up running into each other. Coincidence, or fate?”

 

Definitely fate. A sick, twisted fate. “Coincidence.” Bitterness covered the four-syllable word, having a viscosity greater than any syrup and jam he knew of. 

 

Lance waved his hand dismissively, his dazzling smile melting away Keith’s bitter statement. “Pidge, Hunk, hopefully you have enough brain capacity to remember Keith, right?”

 

A cackle, somewhat resembling a witch’s, erupted into the semi-quiet air. “You mean the emo dude who scared the hell out of Nyma? How could I forget?” Pidge punched Keith’s shoulder a little too hardly, fixing the oversized glasses on their face. “Nice job, bucko, I am very proud of you. Also, did you guys ever talk out the emoness that made you freeze on the staircase? I remember that very well, Keith. You two completely abandoning me…” Lance was uncomfortably shuffling next to Pidge, Keith’s eyes squinting to a sharp, imposing glare. “Judging by the awkward silence, I’m assuming that you talked it out. Anyways, thanks for terrifying the asshole’s spirit out of her, I’m happy about it on Lance’s behalf.”

 

“ _Pidge_ ,” Hunk squeaked behind gritted teeth. Tension surrounded the atmosphere around the four of them, all three aware of it while one was oblivious.

 

“Who is Nyma?”

 

Hunk slapped Pidge’s mouth shut before she could say anything, the culprit behind the distress fighting behind the strong hand. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing to worry about for now. We will be going ahead for lunch – you coming, Lance?”

 

As if he tore himself out of a trance, Lance made the same dismissive gesture from before: “No thanks, I’m good. You two go study for your Physics test, I have to plan out what I’ll be doing for my next photo assignment.” He made a peace sign at his two friends, who waved goodbye and resumed an in-depth conversation about technology news. “So, what are you reading in that hideous red ink?” Lance sat down next to the shy boy, attention fully on the journal entry Keith had open.

 

“O-oh, um, it’s just a little something I wrote when I was younger.”

 

“Can I read it?”

 

Keith was too lost in his friend’s ocean-blue irises to disagree, subconsciously handing over the overused notebook. Lance’s curiosity controlled his actions, fingers tracing over some of the scribbles and doodles that lined the edges of the page. The words were written in a needy hurry, giving off a raw vibe to the stranger who would never understand the meaning behind the all-uppercase page. It was an insight into the psyche of young Keith, each page laden with emotions and questions.

 

‘JAN. THIRD, 2014: _I’m starting to feel whole again, you know? After getting cut and diced and sliced apart for so long, by so many people, I’m taping up every crevice there is until there is only one picture instead of dozens of shreds. It’s been so long since I broke, and what good is it to not fix something that can be fixed? Sew it over and over again until it’s no longer good, and that’s what I think life is. Pristine and unscathed, until the beatings hit and reality sinks in, tearing things apart on the inside and outside – cracking, and cracking, only to crack again. And no matter how long it takes, when you fall down, you have to get back up again somehow. For me, I’ve fallen too many times, and let myself think that I was paralyzed from all the damage I’ve had, but I finally managed to stand up and face life rather than accept death.’_

 

“Dude… what is this?” A nervous laughter came from Lance, concern webbing its way onto his features. “Wasn’t this in your junior year? I wish I knew junior Keith, he seems like the kind of emo who writes spoken word poetry and would stay awake all night to be doing… emo things.” His trail of thought was cut off by the shocked expression on Keith’s face, blood vessels appearing on the edges of his sclera. “Woah, are you okay? I-I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to read that, I just… I thought…”

 

The notebook was confiscated from his hands, Keith reading the page Lance was talking about: sure enough, it was one of the ones he read over and over after the incident. Humiliation couldn’t describe how he felt strongly enough, fingernails diving into the binding of the journal. “It’s not your fault… don’t worry. I was just in a bad spot back then.”

 

A palm landed on the top of his head, his distraught visage dropping to one of surprise as Lance pet him. “Hey, it’s all good now, Keith. You aren’t the same person you were back then. And I’m glad that you wrote things down rather than taking it out on yourself or others. That takes a lot of strength.” Camaraderie and Crushing was becoming a blurred line with each pat, Keith ogling at his friend-crush half-lovingly and half-wistfully. The fingers bristling at the roots and follicles of his hair could be the same ones that would tenderly intertwine between his own, or trace their way down his cheek affectionately, or grab his hips in a frantic frenzy. But reality was not kind, and they would remain a far distance away from his fantasies, kindly touching him in such a cold, cold way.

 

 The soft voice of his faded to a muffled hum, Keith longingly boring at the brownish-pink lips of Lance’s, moving to form words he could not hear beyond his rampant thoughts. He _hated_ it, he hated not being able to be in control of his emotions, he hated not having control at all over something he was able to contain for three dreadful years. Keith wanted nothing more than to be able to do what he wanted, and the situation called for anything but his desires. No matter how much he wished to touch the smooth skin of Lance’s, to kiss the collarbones that plagued his mind in an unknown lust – it was inconceivable and unfathomable.

 

No, Lance was not a flame of his nor his _boy_ friend: no, he was _a_ friend.

 

“… And I’m really happy to have met you now, you know? Even if it wasn’t in ideal conditions, it’s sure a story that neither of us could forget. So, are you sure you’re okay wi- _Kweeth_.” His lips were puckered like a fish’s, Keith’s hands unknowingly slapping the brown cheeks closer together. “ _Whut are yu doin_?”

 

Keith hummed, letting his eyebrows fall back from the arched state. “Yeah, it’s not happening like that.” Lance’s squished face still portrayed how baffled he was by Keith’s actions and statement. “Anyways, the diary section of my notebook is ancient history, and I don’t mind if you read it… I-I guess. _Just_ with my permission.” Lance whined as Keith’s thumbs dove into his cheeks, far enough to accidentally make contact against his molars. “So, what were you talking about before with your photo class? Is it going into a portfolio or something?”

 

Lance tapped at Keith’s knuckles for him to move his hands away, the secretly-flustered boy following his silent orders. “ _Ugh_ , that hurt!” He rubbed at the red areas Keith squeezed. “But yeah, it’s a self-portrait assignment. Which I normally love, because being around others is just second-nature to me in the first place, but I need to be creative with it. Lord knows I’m not the best photographer in the class, so I gotta make up for that with being innovative and eccentric, and I’m neither of those. And with black and white Canons nonetheless… I’m screwed.” He buried his head into his palms mid-speech, complaining into them once he was done talking. “Color is my ace card, and what am I going to do without that?!”

 

Keith shrugged hopelessly, leaning back on the bench. “Why don’t you take photos of something you could picture in a black and white picture?” The pitiful boy next to him rose his head quick enough to crack his neck, epiphany evident on his face. A smug chuckle came from a now-relaxed Keith. “What, never thought of that before? Isn’t that, like, Art 101?”

 

“Keith, my man, I’ll overlook your sarcasm and smugness and worship you forever for reminding me of that.” Lance swung up from the bench, stretching his back from the new energy burst. His head turned back to beam at Keith, who began choking from forgetting how to breathe. “I swear, I won’t disappoint you-“

“I wasn’t really looking forward to it or anything?”

“- And I’ll make the _best_ _goddamn_ self-portrait series that has _ever_ blessed this cursed world, just you see! Literally! I’m gonna knock the black hair dye out of your mullet with the _power of art_.”

“Should I be offended?”

“Just a little bit.”

“Hoh… I think a _lot_ a bit.”

“ _Please_ , just let me have this moment, 2017 emo Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump lovechild.”

 

\--

 

The wonderful smell of unknown, foreign spices made Keith’s stomach grumble in anticipation. Staying with the McClain’s has made him spoiled when it came to food, never going on an empty stomach with them around.

 

“Oooo, papas rellenas!” Samuel salivated, rubbing his tiny hands together in excitement. Keith had no clue what he said, but he sounded overjoyed by what his father made for dinner, so Keith figured it had to be mind-blowing.

 

“ _Papa_ , I don’t wanna eat these again… you make them every time you cook! We had them three times last week! I bet these are leftovers from downstairs anyways!” Carisa whined, pouting her lips the same way Lance does. Her twin slapped the back of her head before their mother could turn around and respond, mumbling some threat Keith could not comprehend – and didn’t want to.

 

Keith saw the nametag ‘Augustus’ still pinned onto their father’s stained shirt, picking up Carisa’s empty plate and giving it to the clueless youngest child, Luna, instead. “Go make your own dinner then.” A series of ‘papa’s rang out from the rebellious teen, reluctant to cooking after she took a shower only minutes beforehand. “No, no, no, Carisa you are a grown woman now. ¿Qué piensas es esto – un restaurante?”

 

“We _literally_ run a restaurant! Ugh!” Carisa retorted, stomping away to her room as her damp hair left a trail of water droplets the entire way. Keith could sort of understand what her dad was getting at, and even though he agreed with Carisa, he knew better than to defy parents – and he didn’t have any parents to call his own.

 

Constantine was given the glare by both his parents as if he was the guilty one, to which he responded to with a shrug and taking his twin’s share of dinner as his own. Samuel uttered an inaudible prayer to himself before digging into the fried meal with his fork, the meat inside them making Keith’s stomach growl again in hunger. Their mom, Rita, giggled at the reaction, Keith unsure of whether he was being silently harassed or not by it.

 

“Someone’s really hungry. Did you eat lunch, Keith?” The slight accent that came with his name was a shocker each time, but he was growing fond of it each time Rita said it. How could he hate such a hardworking and pleasant mom?

 

“Ah, y-yes, I was just really busy all day and this looks so appetizing.”

 

“Aw, such a charmer,” She fanned her hand around playfully, Lance joining in on the action. Keith bashfully ducked his head and sliced through the food, making sure there was no cheese before he ate it. “Oh, sweetie, don’t worry, there’s no dairy in it. Lactose intolerant, right?” Her fingernails tapped the silverware as she picked them up, Keith flattered that she remembered that.

 

Lance’s leg was bouncing next to his own, Keith hyperaware of how close in proximity the two were. Sure, it was dinner, and the table was packed with McClains and a single outsider, but the two shouldn’t be close enough to accidentally rub denim together whenever Lance moved? He never thought much of the habit before, but now that he was fully aware of his feelings for the other, he was learning more strange things about him as the time passed. The name Nyma still gnawed at his interest, probably intruding into a matter that was larger than he was in Lance’s life – and had nothing to do with him. Totally.

 

“This is so good!” Keith silently moaned against the fork, getting odd looks from Constantine and Lance. Their parents were relieved that he enjoyed their food, even though he never found anything unappetizing from them before. Lance’s gaze rushed back to his chipped plate, furiously cutting his dinner. His leg was bouncing noticeably faster than before. Constantine let out a snicker loud enough for the two boys to hear, slyly proceeding to shove a large portion of his food into his mouth.

 

Luna was watching Keith shovel down his meal, still unsure of who he was and why he was here. Since the two have a completely different schedule from one another, they never really saw much of each other: and each time they did interact, Keith swore he was being interrogated by someone too young to understand what mathematics was. The haunting cross in the living room was seen above her head, making him feel even more judged by the young child. Nothing was more nerve-wracking than being hated by someone who knew nothing but the bright side of life.

 

“Mama, why is Lance’s boyfwiend so white? Is he sick?”

 

Keith dropped his fork the instant Lance started choking on his food, punching his chest and puffing out his cheeks. Constantine fell out of his chair in amusement, his cackles mimicking the ones Pidge made back on campus. Both parents were giggling from the innocent question, Rita poking her daughter’s nose lovingly. Keith wasn’t sure if he was breathing or not.

 

“H-he’s not my boyfriend!” Lance stood from his seat, tiny pieces of food dribbling down his mouth and onto the floor. If Keith wasn’t embarrassed enough before, he was _unquestionably_ embarrassed now, a peculiar sense of chilliness drowning his frame. Carisa’s head was now peeping out of her bedroom door, completely absorbed in the unraveling dinner drama. “Keith is not… no es mi novio, Luna! No no! He’s my friend!”

 

Rita and Augustus’ expressions were opposites – one was uncaring while the other was conflicted with what Lance was saying. Luna was perplexed at her older brother’s outburst, along with the twins.

 

“Lance… take it easy, it was just a joke. You know that Luna meant no harm by it,” Constantine propped himself up from the floor, testing out the waters by nudging his brother’s side. Lance swatted his arm away from him, cowering away from the touch. “Dude, it’s fine, why are you so tense?” A worried scoff came from him, backing away from his brother in precaution. “She was just asking a harmless question, you know, Luna’s only curious and confused. And that’s not _really_ the part to be offended about now – Keith’s paleness is more of a jab than anything. Right?” Samuel was whimpering at his brothers’ disagreement, Rita unsure of how to jump into the conversation.  “Nothing personal, Lance… It’s just shits and giggles-“

 

“It _wasn’t_ funny! Alright? Regardless of the question about Keith’s paleness, why… why are we being suspected of being together? Hell, why _would_ anyone e-expect that we’re together in the first place, huh? Just be-because he’s into guys doesn’t mean I suddenly am, too! I can’t have a friend like _that_ , can I? And you know that it’s a sensitive topic for me, I’m still not over Nyma yet – and, and I’m not… I’m… I’m not gay! That’s _not_ me, okay?” His breaths were speeding up, haste evident with each exhale. “Jesus, will people stop asking me if Keith is my boyfriend?! He’s not! So just… _stop_!”

 

A slap reddened Lance’s tightened jaw, Constantine huffing from the adrenaline. “Like ‘ _that_ ,’ huh? He’s a fucking human being, Lance! Why are you being so defensive of yourself because of a stupid, meaningless question… you even threw him under the bus! God, this was blown _way_ out of proportion because you can’t deal with things in a mature way – I can’t stand that about you!”

 

Carisa whistled for them to pay attention, which made the rest of the dazed family members turn to look at her. She pointed to the door, and then the empty seat next to Lance’s, everyone connecting the dots after the explosive turn the dinner had. Lance slumped down to his chair in defeat, letting the situation sink into his overactive mind. Augustus did not seem too concerned with the sudden disappearance of his son’s friend, his face always in a stern, neutral poker face: this only added agitation to the rest of his present family. “Nice going, idiot. You made your friend with nowhere to call _home_ leave, where the hell does he have to go to now?!”

 

“Where is Keith?” Samuel asked his mom, who sighed in response and held him close. “Mama?”

 

“Samuel… I don’t know, no sé…”

 

A squeaking chair interrupted her speech, her husband’s hand patting her shoulder warmly. Augustus left the table hastily, grabbing a coat as he distanced himself from the bickering family of his and closed the front door.

 

“Wow, is your masculinity _that_ fragile, Lance?” Constantine grabbed him by the collar, scratching a bit of his throat in the process. “You can’t handle the thought of being anything different than Rio, can you? Grow some balls, why don’t you, pussy? Basic human decency costs you nothing.”

 

Lance headbutted his younger brother, Constantine tumbling back into the counter ungracefully. “You know, what is your place in my personal matters, huh? And don’t you _dare_ compare me to Rio, hell, she’s not even _here_! _I’m_ here! I’ve always been here!” He pants angrily, glaring at his enraged sibling with contempt. “I’m not fucking gay!”

 

“Why does your sexuality matter right now?! Your friend is fucking _missing_ , you dipshit! Pull it together!” Carisa shrieked, everyone pausing what they were doing in terror. She stomped up to the table, shoving Lance twice before holding up the expensive plate he ate off minutes ago. “How does it feel to be so in denial of your real self that you would put arguing over it before making sure your friend is _okay_? Are you proud of yourself for being Lance McClain, the biggest fucking homophobic, hypocritical dick in Brooklyn? Don’t be a prude because you’re too insecure to be yourself!” She swung the plate at her uneased brother, who dodged it by an inch. “How will you go to sleep knowing that you hurt your friend? What if something happens to him? What if something _unfixable_ happens?”

 

The angst-ridden entry in Keith’s journal came into Lance’s mind, making him come to a halt despite Carisa spitting out insults nonstop. “Christ, you’re going to make a mistake and there’s nothing you can do to fix it if you stay here like a god damn sore loser and feel sorry for yourself. All of this happened because you can’t handle a simple question from your unknowing sister… maybe you really aren’t that different from Rio… Constantine is right. And I hope that eats you alive at night, Lance.”

 

Carisa sharply inhaled after her long speech of spite, putting the plate down unscathed and swiftly exiting the room, following in her father’s footsteps. Rita was holding Samuel with great care, rubbing his back to ease away the trembles he had from the fight. Luna was being cradled by Constantine, who just shook his head in disappointment at Lance.

 

“Why are you letting Nyma hold you back, when it was a brutal time for you during the entire relationship? You’re free of her shackles.” Constantine’s voice was shaky, still overwhelmed by the whole altercation that happened.

 

“She’ll always have… have a part of me, I can’t help that.”

 

“…. That’s the most whack thing you ever said. Why not steal it back? Make yourself whole again, man. And fix whatever the hell you just did to Keith, because I like him and he stands up against you whenever we want to change the music downstairs. A brave soul.”

 

The two brothers busted out in a series of bitter chuckles, Lance nodding at his statement. “He’s _not_ my boyfriend, though.”

 

“Sure, sure, go save your platonic Juliet or Julio or whatever, and maybe you’ll open your eyes.” Constantine shooed him out of the house, Lance rushing out barefoot into the streets. Panic and adrenaline pumped into his veins faster than he ever thought was possible, trying to think of where Keith could be heading towards now.

 

Rita let go of Samuel, who strode over to where Luna and Constantine were. The four were beginning to settle down after the turn of events, Samuel no longer quivering from the quarrel. “Do you think dad knows now?” His voice was drenched in worry, directing all his burdens to his mother.

 

An all-knowing smile, full of wisdom and hope, was flashed back to her concerned son. “Only the Lord knows, sweetie.”

 

\--

 

Bright headlights blinded Keith in the middle of the night, stumbling down the sidewalks into the central side of Bushwick, Brooklyn, where the dreaded shed he squatted in resided. Kids of various sizes and shapes were zooming past him on their squeaky bikes, some reeking of weed and sweat to the point where he had to pinch his nostrils shut. Multiple layers of graffiti embellished the moldy, breaking-down buildings of Bushwick, the familiar art and tags making him smile to himself. If he couldn’t remember the street names, the street art was a sure-fire way of remembering his way back to the shed.

 

Food markets, wannabe gangsters, and litter were ignored by the worn-out boy, limping his way through the last block. Keith was feeling everything and nothing at the same time, contradicting himself in ways he forgot he had in the past. If he was a new person, he was making the same mistakes, and he could not stand it. He could not stomach having to face the same incident that he did years ago, and relive the trauma of his haunting teenage years. Escaping was the only way out of his problems: whether that meant getting too intoxicated that he couldn’t process emotions, or having one-night stands until he could feel in control again, he would prefer it over the loneliness protruding through the walls he built.

 

Nicotine-tainted breaths were blowing in the cold October air, the sky offering no stars to guide him back to where he was inevitably going to arrive. Just like 2014, junior year was repeating itself at the ripe age of nineteen, reminding him of how agonizingly raw he felt before he found a way to cope with his pain. And just like any other wound, he would stitch this up until it heals: this night would only be another scar of his to conceal from the world. Keith was tired, and he wanted nothing more than relief from his troubles.

 

He stole a bottle of vodka from one of the group of kids on the streets, willingly taking a few jabs and slaps to the face for the sole purpose of feeling something other than the burning walls and unrequited feelings that stormed inside of him. A wicked smile grew on his face, blood trickling down his cracked lips and dousing it in the alcohol he so badly needed. It left a corrosive sensation on his bleeding lips, and an equally acrid one in his already-sore throat. Bitter tastes and bitter laughs distracted him from his predicaments, guzzling down the full bottle of vodka as he continued down to the shed. Honks deafened him whenever his unstable body wavered into the road of traffic, drunkenly gesturing a halfhearted sorry with his hands and resuming his stroll down the pavement.

 

His phone was discarded somewhere in Bushwick, Keith unsure of whether he purposely threw it away or if it just fell out without him knowing: whichever one, he was too drunk to care.

 

“Fuck thissss,” He slurred, chucking the now-empty bottle of glass at the decrepit brick building in front of him. A shout came from the inside of the residence, Keith pausing his walk just to flick the unseen stranger off. “Fuck youuuu! _Hah_!” He threw his hands up, crassly snickering at the unfunny situation.

 

“Keith? What the hell is going on?” The blurry stranger came into Keith’s field of vision, the unmistakable tuft of white hair distinguishable in a world of bleary features.

 

“Shiro? Ahhh, man, it’s been _soooooo_ long! What’s _uppppppp_?!”

 

He swung his arm around Shiro’s muscular shoulders, swaying them both around in circles. “Get off, you’re drunk.”

 

“Hell yeah, baby!” Keith obnoxiously yelled, neighbors peeking out their windows to see what was happening outside. He was being pesky, and cared less than ever before.

 

A disappointed sigh rolled off Shiro’s tongue, holding his friend up from falling onto the ground. The two wobbled inside the abandoned shed behind the building, which appeared way more unsightly to Drunk Keith than it did to Sober Keith. Drunk Keith pushed Shiro off him, tumbling down to the dirty mattress in the process of the shove. The now-empty cigarette pack fell out his back pocket, Keith muttering and curling up to the side of the wall.

 

“You’re smoking again?”

 

Keith poked his head out from his arms, pursing his lips like he was a guilty child. The angry wrinkles forming between Shiro’s eyebrows made Keith madly chortle, thrashing his body around to face his disappointed friend. “Why, you gonna tell mommy on me? Goooooood luck with that!” Drunk Keith’s hideous side was showing through his façade, Shiro running his hands down his face in frustration. They haven’t seen each other in weeks, and this was how they met up again – it was overwhelming and worrying. The night easily webbed its way into the top ten unsettling drunk moments of Keith’s.

 

The mattress dipped once Shiro sat himself down on the edge, staring at the emotionless expression of Keith’s somberly. “What are you holding onto inside now, Keith? Are you trying to drown out your memories again?”

 

Keith deadpanned, rolling flat onto his back slowly. Shiro followed his gaze up to the ceiling, cracks and water stains dispersed across the ugly white paint. Holding out his hand to the roof, Drunk Keith let his guard down for the first time in a while, choking up sobs in his burning throat. Vodka and emotions were never a good combination. “I wish I could trade my life for a new one. I can’t do this anymore…” He gritted his teeth to hold back the tears, sniffling repeatedly.

 

“Oh, Keith…” Shiro’s bionic arm helped sit Keith up, slowly moving up and down his spine. “You know that it’s going to be okay, just give things time. The problems of today can be fixed, believe me. You’re still young, and you’ll let simple matters bother you before you come to your senses. How many times have we been in this same predicament, Keith?”

 

“… P-plenty…”

 

“Correct: and we’ll probably do this a dozen more times before things are okay. Find your sanity first, then find the root of the problem, and solve it one by one. For now, just control your breathing… do you want me to make you some tea?”

  
“… Please…”

 

“Alright, let me go do that while you focus on stabilizing your breaths, alright? Stay here, I’ll be right back.” Shiro stood up from the mattress, “And please, lay off the drinking for a while, okay? What are you going to do when I’m not longer here?”

 

“Prooooobably drink my way into picturing you being there.”

 

A snort came from across the room, Shiro shaking his head at Keith’s rationale. Sober, drunk, and in-between, Keith managed to surprise Shiro even years after becoming acquainted with one another: he was still unsure if that was a positive thing or not. While Shiro preoccupied himself in the kitchen, Drunk Keith was replaying “Enjoy the Silence” to cloud over the memories of the disastrous dinner he just had, and anything relating to Lance.

 

He refused to think of Lance.

 

\--

 

Mission failed.

 

He was definitely, _totally_ , completely thinking about Lance, and everything about him, in his conscious wake and dreams.

 

\--

 

Blackness drowned out any light in the streets, Lance sighing as he bent down to lay on the pavement. Carisa tossed him a cold bottle of soda from a distance, successfully hitting his left temple. “Ow! What the hell?” Carisa just shrugged, plopping down next to her problematic brother with an _oof_. The two siblings let quietude take place of any words, watching the cars pass by in the dark night. There was an odd power when it came to silence, letting them process what the other’s words would be without having to utter a single syllable.  

 

Thousands and thousands of stars, masked by the pollution of the borough, were being indirectly gawked at by the two McClains, both pondering about various, miscellaneous things and people. A third person squatted down next to the brooding boy, Carisa and Lance too entranced by the sky of contaminated clouds to look over.

 

“No luck. He’s out of the neighborhood.”

 

Augustus’ voice made both of his present kids cringe, eyebrows soaring up in shock: they were not expecting their father to be there, out of their whole family of snoops.

 

“Listen, Lance. I know you don’t think highly of Rio, considering you had to take the position of the responsible sibling after Matias and her left. However, I don’t want what happened with Rio to taint your beliefs or confidence… It will take some time to get used to, but I understand your internal strife.” His arm snaked around his shivering son, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Be honest with yourself, that’s all I could ask for in a son.”

 

Carisa grinned, punching Lance’s forearm just hard enough for him to wheeze. “Well, I guess that settles it. Truth be told, we all know... officially all of us, even Luna and dad. You must be some kind of idiot if you thought we wouldn’t catch on. Think you could get away with checking out that tall band kid from… what was it, Franklin K. Lane High? I mean, I’m pretty sure we all did, even Samuel.” She puckered her lips, a balled-up fist going up to her chin in thought. Lance’s eyes were alarmingly wide, remembering the kid Carisa was referencing from years back. “Drummers have never been hotter-“

 

“Wait, hold on. Where are the _Pranked_ cameras?” Augustus and Carisa remained silent, giving Lance time to let reality seep in.  “Are you _serious_? H-how long ago did you find out? How did _you_ find out?” The second question was directed towards his father.  “I… I wasn’t ready for this, I need a moment…” He was on the verge of breaking down and sobbing, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows to hold back tears.

 

Augustus patted Lance’s tense-shoulder, wearing a warm expression. “Lance, my boy, there are only two people in this family who can’t keep secrets well – _mama_ , and you.” He chuckled merrily, Carisa nodding her head at his statement. “You can thank the Cordobas for that, your tía is the real drama queen.”

 

Lance and Carisa shared a mutual look of affirmation, knowing just how much gossip Rita’s sister could spread at a family get-together. They made sure to keep their phone calls short and as uninformative as possible to avoid being the brunt of her chitchat. And no matter what, Tía Risa had connections anywhere they went to. That indirect insult was enough to cut through the tension Lance had building up inside, letting out a harsh exhale.

 

“I can’t believe you guys knew and didn’t tell me…”

 

“Um, I’m pretty sure we all knew besides papa. May I remind you, that this is also news to me.” Carisa groaned, repositioning herself to face her family members. “Mama always looks at Keith so fondly, too… probably thought you were going to end up together. And hell, you never know. We McClains apparently can be a bit seductive when we want to… _ahem_ , singing ‘Bootylicious’ and flirting at like four in the morning.”

 

Lance’s face flushed in heat, his blush unseen in the dark of the night. “It was an accident! And Keith’s only a friend!” Augustus pinched his cheek after he finished talking, Lance whining in pain from the gesture.

 

“Well, if you don’t take him, I’m sure someone will-“

 

“Ay, _No_! I don’t want to hear it!”

 

Swatting away his father’s squeezing hand, Lance crossed his arms in a morose fashion, pouting at his sister’s proposition. Augustus guffawed from his son’s dramatic response, Carisa following shortly afterwards. They were subtly bullying Lance – who figured they were full-on harassing him. He was still startled by how his family found out before he told a living soul about it, or even uttered the word **bisexual** out loud before, and the way they behaved about it was significantly polarized from what he was expecting. However, the only encounter he had for the basis of his worries, was when Rio came out.

 

The three stood up after a passing car honked at them, Carisa complaining about how one eardrum wouldn’t stop ringing. “Alright, let’s get back and figure out a new game plan!” She clapped her hands, leading the way back to their house with her phone’s flashlight.

 

A plethora of questions hounded his psyche, along with the astonishment of how the night ended in a comfortable outing. All those times he worried about confessing to be bisexual were all in vain: one, he didn’t have to come out at all, and two, his family was strangely accepting and supportive of it. Something was off, and the bothersome feeling of it raged in the back of his brain. One thing was for sure, and that was that he would have to confront Keith after this catastrophic day.

 

\--

 

After a refreshing night of zero sleep, Lance was hyping himself up to confront Keith first thing in the morning – that was, if he could find him. Therefore, with his cheap earbuds deafening him with foreign techno music, he found himself walking with a slight pep to his step, subtly dancing along to the playlist and dodging his nerves in the process. The playlist Carisa created made him feel like a brand new, empowered man: nothing would get in his way today.

 

Keith had the same idea, trudging into Pratt with the darkest eye circles he ever had. People steered out of his direction, and whether that was from the terrifyingly-intimidating visage he had, or the _BLACKPINK_ song heard from his headphones, he was grateful for the gesture. He would get to places much faster without the useless traffic from people leisurely walking on the campus. Multiple songs faded into each other, bouncing back and forth between Korean and English centric lyrics. He caught himself mindlessly strolling into the center park he was at yesterday, now empty of art students and full of dead, browning leaves pummeling to the dying grass.

 

The bench Keith unofficially claimed as his own was now occupied, a lanky brunette raking through his bedhead with both hands. A bookbag was positioned next to him, a worn-out journal seen poking out of the broken zipper. As if it poured salt into Keith’s re-opened and fresh wounds, he paused a few steps away from the bench, pulling off his headphones slowly. He was in awe, mentally running through the numerous possibilities and scenarios that could unfold between the two of them. Whatever ended up happening between them, Keith could not stop cursing himself out for developing feelings when he knew all that it would do was hurt him. Even as a realist, the pessimistic outlook on the situation seemed unavoidably true to him, and it wasn’t that he had no hope – it was that he _did_ have hope, although slim. If there was no chance of his crush being requited, he would be able to swallow his desires and thoughts, rather than hanging onto a loose, pathetic hope.

 

He was a fool for making Lance the exception to his No Feelings rule, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop after making that exclusion.

 

Clearing his throat out, he used all the willpower and conviction he possessed to trump over the matter dangling in front of him, placing mind over matter to get the suspense over with. He was relying on the fact that this would be in the past the quicker he acted to keep him from backing out. Running away would not only betray himself, it would betray the promise he made to Shiro about fixing things the right way: alone. One step became two, three, and four, continuing down until he reached Lance.

 

Tattered Converse came into his field of view, Lance unintentionally eyeing up Keith to meet his tired eyes. The boy was radiating tiredness, everything about him seeming to be exasperated and agonized. Guilt scraped at his innards, gulping down his word vomit and standing. The height difference seemed even more legitimate now, having to level out where they were looking to maintain contact.

 

No _Bon Iver_ or _Neck Deep_ song could prepare them enough for the raw reality of meeting after a rough night, currents of shame and sorrow ripping them apart without mercy.

 

“Um, good… good morning-“

“ _Just get to it_ , Lance,” Keith spitefully spat at the taller boy, closing his eyes from how bitter he sounded. He was incapable of masking his anguish and acrimony.

 

A hand crept up to the nape of Lance’s neck, nails grazing at the skin roughly. “Um, do you want to, uh, maybe sit? Talk it out, one to one?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“O-okay… you stand, I’ll take a seat…” Nerves slicked over his words, shakily sitting back down on the creaky wooden bench. One trembling fist covered the other on his lap, head ducking down in remorse. “Well, point blank, you missed an interesting end to the night, that’s for sure.” Sad laughter rolled out the last three words, Keith’s nostrils flaring in both annoyance and second-hand pain. “I’m sorry I blew up and outed you to my family, and acted so horrible. There’s nothing wrong with being gay, I was just… stupidly afraid of coming out, and one day I’ll tell you about that, but for now, this is about my well-deserved but poorly-spoken condolences to _you_. If I _was_ you, I wouldn’t even forgive me, really… but I’m praying to a God I’m not faithful to for you to acquit me – even just to not hate me, so I’m not too confident in how that will turn out… but I’m going to do it anyways. And say what I want, no, need to say. Okay?”

 

He leaned back on the chair as he took a deep breath, gazing up at the grey sky above them. “I fucked up, and I’m an asshole, but I wished I could rewind the past twenty-four hours and change things. And if I couldn’t, I would beat myself up for my wrongdoing, it was really shitty of me. But before I go on a rant about why I actually hate myself for that, let me explain what happened after you left. Well, you saw how Constantine and I were getting really heated, right? We sorta’ kinda’ fought a bit, like, I’m pretty sure you see the massive bruised bump on my forehead… and yelled things at each other that we both regret and apologized for. Then, Carisa joins in and berates me, too – rightfully so, because I was a Grade-A dick – until she storms out. Blah blah blah I also go out, and we’re all searching for you separately, and Carisa runs into me… fast-forward, because I suck at storytelling and the most important part hasn’t come yet, my dad joins us, shockingly.” Lance paused to rub underneath her nose, awkwardly grimacing from the memory.

 

“And I get a truth bomb exploded on me about how everyone knew I was bisexual, right? So, long story short, that was all in vain, I’m an idiot, and equally an asshole. _Surpriseeeeee_?”

 

The unsure, lopsided grin paired with jazz hands made Keith’s mouth drop a bit, flabbergasted by the entire spiel he listened to. His mind was not forming any words or comebacks, blankly staring at the timid, anxious boy in front of him. All the questions and insults he had stored for today vanished from his head, nothing floating around his empty thoughts to use out loud. Instead, Keith bent down to the ground, expelling a pent-up sigh and covering his mouth with both clammy palms.

 

 “Fuck, how could I stay mad at someone who uses jazz hands?” Keith grunted out of frustration, lowly screaming into his hands to release all his anger before getting up. Lance pried them away without any clue of doing so, Keith’s flustered face taking Lance aback – he wasn’t usually the expressive type, and Lance wasn’t prepared for anything more than a slight scowl. Heat fumed underneath Keith’s cheeks, sheepishly turning away from the only exception into his emotional side. “W-what?”

 

Lance’s snickers piqued Keith’s interest, the pouting boy subtly stealing glances of his crush. “Nothing, I was just surprised.” His hold on Keith’s wrists tightened marginally, tilting his head to reestablish eye contact. Keith was dying at how cute his gestures were, getting angered and shy from them. “So, do you forgive me?  I swear, you don’t have to, I’m fine if you want to punch me senseless for doing that.”

 

“…. Can I?” Keith’s moue and puppy eyes made Lance cave in, prepping himself for a series of incoming beatings. Instead, he received gentle grazes and nudges with a fist in his chest, confusion eating at his thoughts. He figured he would get a solid right hook to the jaw and need to get surgery for a severe displacement, not get petty hits weaker than Samuel’s. “I don’t hate you, I-I hate that I can’t hate you.” Twirling bits of his fringe, Keith’s focus kept averting to and from Lance’s growing smirk. “You’re forgiven, but not forgotten. Be glad that you won’t be another grudge in a sea of unending pettiness.”

 

“Well, it really isn’t endless now, is it?” He cheekily pointed to himself, Keith giving him a real blow to the chest now: it knocked the wind out of him, head swinging forwards as he wheezed. “ _Christ_!”

 

Keith rose from the ground, chuckling his way up. “I’m not religious, so don’t think your God can hold me back from doing it again.”

 

“Wow, the boys are back in town, huh?” Pidge’s monotone voice startled both of them, Lance hurriedly getting off the bench and brushing off any dirt. “No, no, continue the flirt… **bonding** moment, I’ll just go get coffee by myself. Sayonara, compadres,” She saluted to them in perfect form, flouncing away into the distance.

 

A bit too late, Lance came back with a pointless response: “Hey, don’t use two languages in the same sentence! Gosh, this is blatant _blasphemy_! Right, Keith?”

 

“You’re looking at the wrong guy to help you there, _compadre_.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my birthday passed since the last chapter: im seventeen, the dancing queen, and still fuckIN UGLY AND SINGLE. that's okay though. 
> 
> here's the playlists if you actually care:   
> SIDE A (Lance) https://8tracks.com/dunfrappe/feel-again-side-a  
> SIDE B (Keith) https://8tracks.com/dunfrappe/feel-again-side-b

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a list of all the family member's names in the McClain household:  
> Older brother - Matias (Matt)  
> Older sister - Rio  
> Younger brother (twin of younger sister) - Constantine  
> Younger sister (twin of Constantine) - Carisa  
> Youngest Brother - Samuel  
> Youngest Sister - Luna  
> Mom - Rita  
> Dad - Augustus  
> Aunt (mom's older sister) - Risa
> 
> Hope this was intriguing and not terrible! I'm so bad at ending chapters idek anymore but ya girl is OUT of here. Comments are always appreciated and if I missed anything in the chapter or something is grammatically incorrect/missing, let me know! ༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ thank you for reading EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THIS you are all great and i'm getting emo so lemme post this now before i run out of characters on this cursed end note


End file.
